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Closing the leadership development learning transfer gap

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Closing the leadership development learning transfer gap

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Closing The Leadership Development Learning Transfer Gap

James M. Campbell

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
A dissertation submitted to the faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education

May 2023

© Copyright by James M. Campbell 2023
All Rights Reserved

The Committee for James M. Campbell certifies the approval of this Dissertation

Helena Seli
Courtney Malloy
Heather Davis, Committee Chair

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
2023

iv
Abstract
Organizations widely use leadership development programs and training initiatives; however,
these programs often fail to meet their organizational goals due to low levels of learning transfer
and the application of learned knowledge and skills at work. This study used social cognitive
theory as a framework to understand the drivers of and barriers to leadership development
learning transfer gaps. Following a literature review, detailed semi-structured interviews were
conducted with 12 senior and experienced leadership development practitioners at medium to
large organizations in the United States and Europe. These interviews highlighted several causes
of low leadership learning transfer in organizations, including high learner and trainer workload,
low self-efficacy expectations, and weak organizational support. The study concluded with a
condensed set of recommendations for leadership development professionals and champions
intent on improving learning transfer. These include designing leadership programs as spaced
learning experiences over time, incorporating work tasks and application planning, and involving
learners’ supervisors and peer communities as learning transfer accelerators.
Keywords: leadership development, learning transfer, training effectiveness, spaced
learning, supervisor support

v
Dedication
To my parents, Maureen and Bob, both life-long learners, who taught me to value education and
to prioritize its pursuit.

To leadership development champions around the world, that this work might help them achieve
the impact they seek and help our next generation of leaders emerge.

vi
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge those people that have helped me in the pursuit of this
scholarly enterprise. My wife, Jackie, offered unconditional love and support throughout my
terminal degree, which has been a continued source of encouragement and fuel. I want to
acknowledge my kids, Rebecca and Ian, who have inspired me through their own academic and
professional ambitions. You two are a source of great joy to me. Thanks for being willing to
share your college years. I appreciate my golden retriever, Teddy, for his constant
companionship through long hours of research and writing.
I want to acknowledge my boss and friend, Scott, whose immediate and continued
support for this effort made my doctoral work a reality. And our colleague, Drea, whose
dedication to leadership theory, academic research, and teaching have been an inspiration.
I must also acknowledge the researchers studying teaching practices, learning transfer,
and leadership development. Thank you for allowing me to stand on your shoulders for a
moment. I appreciate the involvement of the leadership development sponsors and managers
who participated in my research. And I wish to thank my professors, dissertation team, and
cohort members in the USC Organizational Change & Leadership EdD program. Learning and
creating with you all has been a wonderful experience.

vii
Table of Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv
Dedication ........................................................................................................................................v
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ vi
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................x
Chapter One: Introduction to the Study ...........................................................................................1
Context and Background of the Problem .............................................................................1
Organizational Context ........................................................................................................2
Purpose of the Project and Research Questions ...................................................................3
Importance of the Study .......................................................................................................4
Theoretical Framework and Methodology...........................................................................4
Definitions............................................................................................................................5
Organization of the Dissertation ..........................................................................................6
Chapter Two: Literature Review .....................................................................................................7
Leadership Development Learning Transfer Gap................................................................7
Historical Context ................................................................................................................8
Conceptual and Theoretical Frameworks ............................................................................8
Causes of Transfer Problem ...............................................................................................11
Strategies to Improve Transfer...........................................................................................14
Summary ............................................................................................................................32
Chapter Three: Methodology .........................................................................................................34
Research Questions ............................................................................................................34
Overview of Design ...........................................................................................................34
Research Setting.................................................................................................................36

viii
The Researcher...................................................................................................................36
Data Sources ......................................................................................................................38
Validity and Reliability ......................................................................................................42
Ethics..................................................................................................................................43
Limitations and Delimitations............................................................................................44
Chapter Four: Findings ..................................................................................................................45
Participants .........................................................................................................................45
Research Question 1: Learner Transfer Barriers ...............................................................46
Research Question 2: Learning and Development Transfer Obstacles .............................52
Research Question 3: Transfer-Boosting Practices............................................................57
Summary of Findings .........................................................................................................74
Chapter Five: Conclusions and Recommendations .......................................................................76
Key Findings ......................................................................................................................77
Recommendations ..............................................................................................................80
Limitations and Delimitations............................................................................................90
Future Research .................................................................................................................91
Conclusion .........................................................................................................................92
References ......................................................................................................................................95
Appendix A: Interview Questions ...............................................................................................109

ix
List of Tables
Table 1 Data Sources 35
Table 2 Interview Questions, Research Questions Addressed, and Key Concepts Addressed 40
Table 3 Participant Summary Information 46
Table 4 Learner Transfer Barrier Themes and Respondent Data 47
Table 5 Learning and Development Learning Transfer Obstacle Themes and Respondents 52
Table 6 Transfer-Boosting Practices Themes and Respondent Data 59
Table 7 Key Findings From Learning Transfer Research 78
Table 8 Key Recommendations to Encourage Leadership Development Learning Transfer 81

x
List of Figures
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework 11
Figure 2: Association of Learner Transfer Barriers With Social Cognitive Theory Factors 49
Figure 3: Association of L&D Transfer Obstacles With Social Cognitive Theory Factors 54
Figure 4: Association of Transfer Boosting Practices With Social Cognitive Theory Factors 60

1

Chapter One: Introduction to the Study
The problem of practice for this study was that the impact of leadership development
programs has been hindered by the low transfer of learned behaviors into the workplace (Beer et
al., 2016). Leadership development programs have been in widespread use and have consumed
substantial time and resources (Kaiser & Curphy, 2013). However, these training programs have
been ineffective when measured on how well leadership trainees have applied their newly
learned knowledge and skills at work (Society for Human Resource Management, 2016). This
study identified key drivers of and barriers to leadership development learning transfer
(Lacerenza et al., 2017) and developed recommendations on best practices to make leadership
development programs more impactful. The following sections provide context on leadership
development programs, the learning transfer gap, and the goals and importance of this study.
Context and Background of the Problem
Organizations across the globe have had a common focus on developing effective
leaders, investing substantial time and effort in that pursuit (O’Leonard & Loew, 2012).
Effective leaders have been associated with many organizational goals, such as increased
employee satisfaction (Alfes et al., 2013; Kozak, 2014) and improved financial performance
(Harter et al., 2010), and dysfunctional leaders have been associated with negative outcomes
(Leary et al., 2013). In pursuit of better leaders, organizations have invested heavily in leadership
development training programs for their employees, with U.S. spending estimated at $14 billion
in 2014 (Kaiser & Curphy, 2013) and with leadership development having become the largest
training focus for many organizations (Lacerenza et al., 2017). However, most leadership
development efforts have not met the performance expectations of those sponsoring and
implementing them. Leadership development programs overall have tended to be judged as
2

ineffective by those that sponsored and implemented them (Beer et al., 2016; Society for Human
Resource Management, 2016), with some having questioned whether leadership development
efforts are worth the time and effort (Kaiser & Curphy, 2013; Sørensen, 2017).
An important cause of leadership development’s ineffectiveness is that trainees typically
have not transferred their learned skills from the learning environment into their work
environment (Beer et al., 2016; Govaerts et al., 2017). This learning transfer gap has become
common for leadership development and many other forms of organizational training (Sørensen,
2017). Because the impact of training requires learning transfer, training without learning
transfer is unproductive (Blume et al., 2010; Johnstal, 2013), and learning transfer does not
happen as a natural result of training (Lacerenza et al., 2017). For these reasons, I engaged in this
study to investigate barriers to leadership development learning transfer and identify best
practices to improve learning transfer for these initiatives. Learning transfer has been studied for
decades and has a substantial amount of prior literature to inform this study.
Organizational Context
Klein-Beckham Corporation (KBC, a pseudonym) is a well-established privately held
provider of leadership training and coaching services. The company has approximately 300
employees and earns revenues in the $50 million to $75 million range. The firm has trained 4-5
million people across the globe in leadership/managerial and interpersonal skills. KBC has
worked with hundreds of customer companies each year. The focus of its efforts with clients has
been on the planning and execution of training experiences. KBC has built sustainment and
reinforcement materials into its learning experiences and typically has included action planning
and practice steps into each course. However, it has been common that only 10% to 20% of
leadership trainees have actively applied what they learned in KBC’s classes. Data on leadership
3

development learning transfer came from several sources. KBC implemented tracking surveys
with approximately 10% of their customers. The instruments used gathered information on
learner satisfaction with the training, understanding of key concepts, experience applying new
skills, and benefits that have been experienced, all following the structure of the Kirkpatrick and
Kirkpatrick training evaluation model (2016). These surveys reported relatively low levels of
application 3 to 4 months after training. KBC also has collected information on the usage of
support tools and application-oriented content through its in-house learning management
platform, which confirmed that learners spent little time accessing tools or content that would
help them apply. While low learning transfer has been common across the leadership
development industry (Beer et al., 2016), KBC has continued to work with customers to improve
the learning transfer of their learning experiences.
Purpose of the Project and Research Questions
The purpose of this study was to uncover the primary drivers and barriers of leadership
development learning transfer and to outline a set of recommended practices that might improve
learning transfer rates in leadership development programs. This study incorporated findings
from prior research with qualitative interviews of learning and development (L&D)
professionals. Interviews were focused on the following research questions:
1. What learning transfer barriers do L&D professionals believe that leadership
development trainees encounter most at work?
2. What barriers do L&D professionals encounter most frequently when implementing
measures to boost learning transfer/application after leadership training?
3. What support & reinforcement practices do L&D professionals find most effective at
improving learning transfer?
4

Importance of the Study
As described above, organizations around the world have invested heavily in leadership
development programs (Govaerts et al., 2017) to pursue the many organizational benefits
associated with effective leadership (Alfes et al., 2013; Harter et al., 2010; Kozak, 2014).
However, much research indicates that leadership development efforts have been ineffective and,
therefore, could be considered a poor use of time and money (Kaiser & Curphy, 2013).
Leadership experts have studied the subject for over a century (Day et al., 2014), and the
learning transfer gap has been researched heavily since the 1950s (Blume et al., 2010). Despite
this heavy focus on research, leadership development has continued to have uncertain impacts
and variable effectiveness due to ongoing learning transfer gaps (Beer et al., 2016). This study
sought to address this issue. By defining some key practices that can improve leadership
development learning transfer, this study could materially help organizations around the globe
develop better leaders, improve their employees’ engagement, and increase their financial
performance.
Theoretical Framework and Methodology
The theoretical framework for this study centered on social cognitive theory (Bandura,
1991, 2001). This theory describes how people learn and apply skills based on the influences of
their social environment. Social cognitive theory views human beings as inherently social beings,
`and as such, learning processes are affected by social connections and the behaviors and
expectations of others. This theory has three factors (Bandura, 1991, 2001). Personal factors
include a person’s knowledge, motivations, expectations, and attitudes. Behavioral factors
include a person’s skills and actions, which may or may not be the result of learning.
Environmental factors include the influence of others and social norms in their environment.
5

These three factors are highly relevant and useful in studying training transfer problems because
they align well with many of the dynamics found in the literature that act as drivers and barriers
to transfer. The theoretical framework for this study also incorporated several other concepts that
Bandura defined as part of social cognitive theory (Bandura, 2001; Usher & Schunk, 2017). This
included self-efficacy, self-regulation, social comparisons, role modeling, and feedback.
Together, these concepts provided a useful set of lenses through which to analyze this problem.
The research methodology focused on a set of qualitative interviews. The target
respondents were experienced L&D practitioners in large organizations that had led successful
and unsuccessful leadership development efforts. By talking to leadership development
practitioners who have experienced both successes and failures, I intended to capture the best
insights into drivers and barriers, promising practices, and practices that have not been perceived
as effective.
Definitions
Given that the focus of this study was on leadership development learning transfer, which
is a domain that not all readers will be aware of, here are some definitions of commonly used
terms from this study.
• Leadership development is the intentional process of systematically improving and
enhancing someone’s knowledge and abilities to lead others (Day et al., 2014;
Lacerenza et al., 2017). This often includes teaching new mindsets and skillsets and
often takes the form of formal training experiences.
• Learning and development (L&D) professionals are those people in organizations
responsible for training and upskilling employees to meet the changing needs they
faced (Barratt-Pugh et al., 2020). L&D people have increasingly become more
6

strategic partners with organizational business unit leaders as the ability of employees
to learn and grow has become more important over time. Regarding this study, L&D
respondents were typically responsible for designing, delivering, and overseeing
leadership development programs, which made them a highly relevant target for this
research.
• Learning transfer is the act of shifting knowledge and skills learned in one place or
context into another place or context (Baldwin & Ford, 1988). In this report, it
applied to how well leadership learners apply what they learned in training in their
daily professional lives.
Organization of the Dissertation
This dissertation has used a traditional five-chapter structure. Chapter One provides an
overview of the central problem, identifying the criticality of this work and some key concepts.
Chapter Two offers a review and synthesis of the considerable body of prior literature on
learning transfer and leadership development effectiveness. Chapter Three describes the research
methodology, data sources, information on the research, and other related dimensions. Chapter
Four describes the study’s findings in depth. Chapter Five covers a set of recommended best
practices for leadership development practitioners. Chapter Five is followed by a set of
references and appendices.

7

Chapter Two: Literature Review
The purpose of this literature review was to provide the reader with an understanding of
the research on learning transfer and what the recent and seminal research has found to be the
major influencers of learning transfer. This covered drivers of and barriers to learning transfer in
general and findings and practices related to leadership development learning transfer where that
research exists. This section also introduced my conceptual/theoretical models, describing how I
structured this research.
Leadership Development Learning Transfer Gap
Leadership development programs have been ineffective at changing leadership
behaviors in the workplace, stemming from low rates of learning transfer. The evidence has
indicated that leadership development trainees either do not apply new skills or quickly revert to
their prior practices, which has made most leadership development investments ineffective (Beer
et al., 2016). And those responsible for these programs have known that this is the case, with less
than 20% of Human Resource professionals having rated their leadership development programs
as very effective (Society for Human Resource Management, 2016). Organizations have invested
much money and time in leadership development efforts, with U.S. companies having spent
almost $14 billion on leadership development in 2012 (O’Leonard & Loew, 2012). They have
done this because they understand how important effective leadership is to their organization’s
health. A wealth of research has linked important measures like employee satisfaction (Kozak,
2014) and financial performance (Harter et al., 2010) to the existence of effective and
appreciated leaders. The problem of low learning transfer in leadership development initiatives
continues to be an important issue to address and can have substantial positive impacts across
organizations and regions.
8

Historical Context
Both the subjects of leadership development and of learning transfer have been well-
researched for decades. Leadership theory research spans back to the 19th century (Avolio et al.,
2009), which has led to many leadership theories and practices, and a search on Amazon.com for
books on leadership yielded over 60,000 results. Similarly, research on learning transfer started
over 100 years ago, with educational researchers investigating the nature of learning transfer and
its level of pervasiveness (Blume et al., 2010). Research on leadership development learning
transfer in an organizational setting started in the 1950s (Rouiller & Goldstein, 1993) and has
received increasing attention over time. Baldwin and Ford (1988) studied learning transfer in the
1980s and described the situation as a “transfer problem” (p. 63). Baldwin and Ford created a
commonly used conceptual model for learning transfer that is considered a seminal work in this
domain. It segments learning transfer inputs into three categories: learner characteristics, training
design characteristics, and work environment characteristics. This model has been widely used to
structure research projects, showing over 5000 citations on Google Scholar, and becoming the
framework for several meta-analyses of learning transfer over the years. Leadership
development, learning transfer, and the intersection between these two domains all have
available research and offer useful studies from which to build.
Conceptual and Theoretical Frameworks
My conceptual framework for this study was based on social cognitive theory (Bandura,
1991, 2001) and its related ideas and distinctions. Social cognitive theory is a theory of human
learning that highlights the effects of a person’s social environment on their thinking and
learning. Bandura created this theory in response to prior theories emphasizing learning through
direct experiences to explain that most learning can occur through watching the behavior of other
9

people and the consequences that arise from this behavior (Bandura, 1991, 2001). These social
learning influences seemed highly relevant for this study, as I planned to explore the belief that
learning transfer is highly impacted by observed or non-observed behaviors of peers and leaders
and by other environmental indicators that convey messages about the importance of applying
newly learned skills. Bandura (1991, 2001) described learning as more than just a process of
imitation. Social cognitive theory acknowledges that humans are social beings and are deeply
influenced not only by thoughts, feelings, and experiences but also by observations and
interpretations of the behaviors, actions, reactions, and consequences that happen to the people
around them.
Social Cognitive Theory ’s Three Factors
Social cognitive theory has three critical factors that interplay (Bandura, 1991, 2001).
The first is personal or cognitive factors, which include people’s knowledge about a subject, their
positive and negative motivations about it, and their attitudes toward the subject. The second
element is behavioral factors which include people’s actions and reactions. Prior learning
theories assumed that behavior was a natural outcome of learning; however, social cognitive
theory adds an environmental factor (Bandura, 1991, 2001). The environmental factor includes
all the surrounding social and organizational influences that people feel from their families,
coworkers, and others they interact with. Fundamental to social cognitive theory is the concept of
triadic reciprocity, which describes that the personal, behavioral, and environmental factors
affect each other in an interconnected system of influences (Bandura, 1991, 2001). These three
factors are highly relevant and useful in studying training transfer problems because they align
well with many transfer drivers and barriers found in the literature.
10

Supporting Concepts
Bandura also identified several underlying concepts that support social cognitive theory
(Bandura, 2001; Usher & Schunk, 2017). Self-efficacy describes how confident people are in
their ability to complete a task, reflecting whether they have the needed knowledge, skills,
motivation, and resources to succeed (Wood & Bandura, 1989). Self-regulation is an ongoing
process of observing thoughts, feelings, and actions and adjusting plans to better achieve a goal
(Usher & Schunk, 2019). This self-regulatory thinking happens before a task (planning), during a
task, and after a task (reflection). Bandura (2001) described this as a process in which people
monitor themselves, make critical judgements, and react accordingly. Social comparisons (Usher
& Schunk, 2019) are a mechanism by which people measure their own performance, success,
and methods by comparing themselves to others. Positive social comparisons, where a learner
perceives their knowledge and skills are higher than peers, can raise a learner’s motivation and
self-efficacy. Connected to social comparison is the concept of role models, where certain
individuals become examples of proper behavior and successful outcomes. Another concept
underlying social cognitive theory is feedback, the positive or negative reactions or related
stimuli that tell people whether something is working and influences their self-efficacy (Bandura,
2001). These concepts helped me analyze the leadership transfer gap problem.
The conceptual model in Figure 1 shows the personal, behavioral, and environmental
factors fundamental to social cognitive theory, with triadic reciprocity indicated at the center and
through the gray arrows. This figure also overlays five social cognitive theory concepts located
near the factors they are most aligned with relating to my research. It was my intention to use
these concepts to investigate the many intrapersonal and interpersonal influences on leadership
development learning transfer.
11

Figure 1
Conceptual Framework

Causes of Transfer Problem
While many research sources provide proof of low levels of learning transfer and low
impact of leadership development efforts, there were `fewer sources covering the underlying
causes of these problems, with most of the transfer research focused on improving transfer and
defining best practices. The available research on transfer barriers covered topics across the three
factors of social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1991, 2001). These ranged from discussing learners’
difficulties applying new skills due to being too busy to barriers created by unsupportive
supervisors, coworkers, and executives. The research also discussed other organizational limiters
12

to transfer related to insufficient resources, rewards, and recognition for applying new behaviors.
These themes have been explored further in the following section.
Workload of Leadership Learners
When training participants return to work after training, they have often struggled to find
time to invest in applying new skills (Rainbird & Munro, 2003; Saks, 2013). During training,
these participants have spent substantial time away from their normal assignments, and when
their learning experience completed, they have often found themselves with a considerable
backlog of work to attend to. Russ-Eft (2002) described this as a fundamental problem with the
participant’s workload. According to cognitive load theory (Sweller, 2009), learning and
application happen most when learners are not subjected to too much information, stimulation, or
conflicting responsibilities. Applying new learning in the work setting will introduce an
additional amount of cognitive load for learners, so it could be argued that it is a best practice to
reduce learners’ workload during and after training just to allow the opportunity for transfer.
High levels of workload and heightened urgency caused by being busy with training activities
have had a deleterious effect on transfer. Holton et al. (2000) also described this problem and
invited participants’ supervisors to review and adjust their workload as they end their learning
experience. This introduction of the supervisor’s role provides a useful segue to the next cause of
transfer gaps.
Unsupportive Supervisor Behaviors
When learners return from leadership training or other training programs, they have
looked to their supervisors for implicit and explicit signals on the importance of applying their
new knowledge and skills. Many sources described supervisor behavior as a major cause of weak
learning transfer (D’Annunzio-Green & Barron, 2019; Saks, 2013). Some supervisor behaviors
13

can be subtly damaging, such as a lack of verbal encouragement to use new behaviors (Russ-Eft,
2002), not attending classes themselves or demonstrating any of the skills at work (Govaerts et
al., 2017), a lack of help figuring out how to apply new skills in current tasks, and not evaluating
direct reports on their use of new skills at work (Saks, 2013). These behaviors have told learners
that their supervisor did not value their training or prioritize their behavior change over other
responsibilities. Supervisors can also be more direct about their lack of support, communicating
disagreement with the new methods their people just learned and putting penalties in place if
their people choose to put them into practice.
Unsupportive Coworkers
In addition to supervisors, the behavior of other work colleagues has been a barrier to
learning transfer. According to Saks (2013), a lack of support for learners’ colleagues and
coworkers is a major derailer of learning transfer. There are many examples of trainees returning
to work and being scorned and derided by their peers when they talked about their learning
experience and tried to use new skills (Nijman et al., 2006). This disapproval and opposition can
arise from coworkers’ fear of change and resistance to the unknown. This adverse feedback and
lack of support can have a strong negative effect on motivation to transfer (Weisweiler et al.,
2013).
Weak Organizational Support
Finally, lack of organizational support has had a damaging environmental effect on
learning transfer. It has signaled to learners that those in authority in the organization have not
valued their learning and have been either apathetic toward or disapproving of these new skills
(Bhatti et al., 2013; D’Annunzio-Green & Barron, 2019). Lack of organizational support can
manifest in many ways. Some of the most common manifestations are the lack of rewards
14

offered for applying new skills at work, insufficient resources offered to support learning
initiatives and their reinforcement, and the lack of visible support by senior leaders for the
application of skills on the job (Saks, 2013). The likelihood of learners’ transferring their new
skills into their daily routines diminishes when they have not had sufficient time to apply new
skills, have not felt that demonstrating new knowledge and skills is important to their supervisor,
have felt disapproval and scorn from peers when they mention their training, or when they
sensed that their organization overall does not care about them applying.
Strategies to Improve Transfer
The significant body of prior research indicated that many practices that can improve
learning transfer in leadership development programs. These practices have been researched and
written about individually and, in some cases, organized into widely cited frameworks such as
the learning transfer system inventory from Holton et al. (2007). In the following sections,
themes in the prior research were organized according to the three factors of social cognitive
theory (Bandura, 1991, 2001). The relevant concepts from social cognitive theory included in my
conceptual framework (see Figure 1) have also been highlighted in the following sections where
they come into play.
Personal Factors
The personal factors dimension in this conceptual framework focus on learners’
knowledge, motivation, and attitudes related to learning and applying new knowledge and skills
in a work setting. The following section outlines several strategies found in the literature to have
improved learners’ knowledge and motivation to learn and apply.
15

Needs and Outcomes
Leadership development programs that were designed based on a needs assessment
resulted in increased learning and transfer back on the job (Lacerenza et al., 2017). Needs
assessments are investigations to determine a training initiative’s performance gaps and specific
learning objectives. Program designers who identify the actual business goals and the learning
and behavioral change needs are more likely to design leadership training interventions that meet
those needs. Research indicated that developing training based on a needs assessment (Salas et
al., 2012) was beneficial. This finding supports a well-espoused belief by many instructional
designers. The importance of a needs assessment also countered the belief that standardized
leadership development solutions can be equally effective across many organizational contexts
(Gurdjian et al., 2014) and, instead, suggested that tailored leadership solutions would be more
likely to meet needs.
Defining clear leadership development outcomes early in the design process and using
them to build the learning experience has been a best practice that drives learning transfer (Allen,
2016). This can allow the entire learning experience to revolve around the specific behavioral
outcomes being targeted. According to Ambrose (2010), learning objectives should guide
learning designers’ selection of content and activities. This can take the form of learning
objectives written by instructional designers in a very specific and actionable way. Concentrating
on objectives keeps instructional designers focused on these goals, so they do not get lost in the
details of their work. This focus on outcomes has also helped to demonstrate the effectiveness of
leadership training (Avolio et al., 2009) and, through targeted practice, to facilitate positive
experiences for learners and an increased sense of self-efficacy. The needs assessment step has
often been skipped or executed insufficiently by training designers who assumed they knew what
16

the focus of the training should be. However, researching the most pressing needs of leadership
development training interventions and identifying the most essential learning and behavioral
outcomes for organizational learners are best practices from the current research.
Spaced Learning
Spaced learning is a promising practice for leadership development training. Spaced
learning is the method of breaking up the learning experience into many parts spaced over time
(Kang, 2016). This stretching out of the learning over a longer period in which learners are re-
exposed to the material has been demonstrated in many studies to be highly effective in boosting
learning, as compared to learning experiences that happen all at once. The spaced learning
approach has improved memory creation and recall in learners across a wide set of learning
applications (Kang, 2016; Smolen et al., 2016) and helped them transfer their new knowledge
and skills into new settings.
Spaced learning has had connections to many different learning theories (Paas et al.,
2004; Smolen et al., 2016), with general support for the idea that recalling and re-applying new
ideas forms stronger neural pathways. A meta-analysis about spaced practice (Donovan &
Radosevich, 1999) found that spaced practice led to significantly higher performance on new
tasks than massed practice situations, where the benefit of spaced practice decreased somewhat
with the complexity of the learned tasks. In the leadership development domain, studies of
spaced learning had mixed results regarding its effect on learning but still found measurable
improvements in learning transfer and impact (Lacerenza et al., 2017). When learners are
exposed to more practice opportunities over time, they are more likely to become comfortable
with new tasks and integrate them into their work tasks. Designing spaced learning experiences
is a relatively new practice for many instructional designers, and those designers that are also
17

facilitators often prefer to design single-event training programs that they can easily administer
and lead. Spacing out learning experiences over time has much potential for improving
leadership development learning transfer and was described by researchers as a cost-effective
way for learning designers to make their learning experiences more impactful (Kang, 2016).
Knowledge Assessment
Another commonly espoused best practice in adult learning design has been to
incorporate knowledge assessments (Mayer, 2011), which can encompass a variety of ways to
identify what the participants have learned. These assessments have been useful for providing
learning design insights to designers, for providing moment-to-moment evaluations to help
facilitators modify their plans, and, more relevant to this paper, assessments have provided
learners with critical insights on the degree to which they understand new material. They have
helped learners understand their level of comprehension of the factual, conceptual, and
procedural skills being taught (Krathwohl, 2002) and have provided a rich opportunity for
metacognition. Knowledge assessment is also connected to social cognitive theory (Bandura,
1991, 2001) through the dynamics of self-regulation and self-efficacy. When learners experience
a knowledge assessment, whether through a multiple-choice test or role-playing activity, they
must use self-regulation to form plans, select behaviors, and evaluate their performance (Usher
& Schunk, 2019). Their self-evaluation then informs their sense of self-efficacy.
There are many ways to assess knowledge before, during, and after a leadership learning
experience. Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016) listed knowledge tests, surveys, interviews, and
teach-backs among the more popular methods. These can be overt evaluations, where the
learners pause their work to engage in a test of some form, or can be covert evaluations, where
the learners are engaged in an activity in which their performance provides mastery insight to an
18

observer or facilitator (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). Roediger and Butler (2010) looked at
how knowledge assessments can impact learning transfer and found that taking knowledge tests
requires the participants to retrieve information they have learned. This retrieval activity
increases the learner’s ability to recall and improves transfer in other settings. This position was
supported by Dunlosky et al. (2013), whose meta-analysis also determined that asking learners to
explain what they have learned to others (referred to as “teach-backs” by Kirkpatrick and
Kirkpatrick) might be the most effective type of knowledge assessment. Some view knowledge
assessment as a barrier to having a smooth leadership development learner experience, but
knowledge assessments provide critical information to learners on how well they are
understanding and mastering what is being taught. This then gives the learners a chance to
modify their behaviors and gives the learning experience designers some formative feedback to
consider for the instructional design.
Task Value
Task value was described by Eccles (2005) as a person’s level of interest in a task’s
execution or outcome. This level of interest or motivation toward a task is subjective because
different people naturally ascribe different levels of value to different tasks and outcomes. Task
value can include both intrinsic and extrinsic forms of motivation related to tasks (Quratulain et
al., 2021) that have meaningful effects on learning transfer. Eccles described four aspects of
motivation (2005): the intrinsic value people get from performing a task (e.g., attending trade
shows is intrinsically rewarding for some and a negative experience for others), the value people
get from performing well on a task, the amount of usefulness or instrumentality perceived from
completing a task, and the level of investment and opportunity costs required to complete a task.
Together, these four sub-domains create the intrinsic and extrinsic benefits and costs that inform
19

people’s level of task value. And to underscore the power of task value related to transfer,
Alliger et al. (1997) found that task value was more critical to learner transfer than the learning
itself.
The research suggested that the positive causal relationship between task value and
learning transfer also applies in the leadership development domain. According to Tafvelin and
Stenling (2021), participants who perceived that leadership development training would be
valuable and rewarding for them were more likely to exert effort to apply new knowledge and
skills and more likely to work through application challenges than those ascribing lower task
value. Positive task value has been an important driver of transfer in leadership development
initiatives. Tafvelin and Stenling (2021) concluded that designers of leadership development
programs should structure their programs and position them in ways that increase task value in
the target populations and pay close attention to participant’s level of task value throughout a
training experience to determine task value barriers that might be addressed through redesign.
Participants’ task value is a critical component for leadership development designers and
facilitators to attend to if learning transfer is to take place.
Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectancy
Self-efficacy was defined by Clark and Estes (2008) as a person’s assessment of their
ability to achieve a goal and by Bandura (1993) as a person’s belief in their capability to perform
a task or complete a goal. In contrast to a generalized sense of self-confidence, this sense of
perceived effectiveness in the context of a goal or task has been one of the widely accepted
drivers of motivation to transfer skills after training. Bandura (1993) found much research
describing that self-efficacy is impacted by mastery experiences, vicarious learning, and
persuasion from others, among other factors. Mastery experiences can arise from opportunities to
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first use new skills in a classroom setting and from finding opportunities to practice on the job
(described further below). People can learn new skills vicariously through observation of others.
There are many methods in which people are encouraged to learn and apply through social
persuasion (Bandura, 1993), which is investigated further in the environmental factors section
below.
Several studies pointed to the causal relationship between self-efficacy and learning
transfer (Heilmann et al., 2013; Islam & Ahmed, 2018, Quratulain et al., 2021). Some studies
described that individuals’ self-efficacy perceptions before training often influenced their self-
efficacy perceptions after the training (Massenberg et al., 2017), fueling learner transfer. The
opposite dynamic has also been found, in which people with low self-efficacy displayed low
levels of learning transfer (Na-Nan & Sanamthong, 2019) because they had less confidence in
their ability to achieve the benefits of the goal or task. A further benefit to learner self-efficacy is
that some research indicated that participants with high self-efficacy will move past minimal
thresholds of learning transfer and achieve greater outcomes because they are more likely to set
more challenging targets for themselves as they apply new skills in the workplace.
Outcome expectancy is a concept closely related to self-efficacy and is often conflated
with it. Some studies distinguished between the two concepts (Brown et al., 2014), describing
self-efficacy as the belief that a person can execute a behavior correctly, while outcome
expectancy is a person’s perceived likelihood that the beneficial outcome will be yielded from
the proper execution despite other factors. People can believe they can accomplish a task and still
not believe the task will yield a sought-after outcome due to other influences. For instance,
someone may believe they are highly capable of running a new team but feel they are unlikely to
be selected for the team leader role, resulting in a low outcome expectancy even though they
21

demonstrated high self-efficacy. Scaduto et al. (2008) discussed the positive effects of outcome
expectancy on transfer and how leaders can improve outcome expectancy through their
behaviors. These two related concepts both show strong potential for increasing motivation,
learning transfer, and willingness to persevere in challenging transfer environments.
These findings relate not just to learning programs in general but also relate to leadership
development initiatives. In a sizable longitudinal study, Reichard et al. (2017) found that a
leadership development participant’s belief in their capability to learn leadership-related
information and practices was an influential motivational variable that impacted participants’
plans to transfer and their actual transfer patterns. Higher self-efficacy led to more measurable
and observable leadership behavior 1 month after training. This is an attractive outcome for
leadership development learning designers and sponsors. To aid learning designers, Stawiski et
al. (2020) recommended that they include some steps in leadership development designs to
incorporate encouragement, positive examples and success stories, and opportunities to safely
apply new skills. There was also much research pointing to the value of positive attention and
involvement from coworkers and managers to encourage self-efficacy through social persuasion
and provide vicarious learning opportunities (Bandura, 1993). Self-efficacy is a relevant variable
to study and encourage if improving leadership development transfer is a goal.
Voluntary Involvement
People can be selected for learning experiences by others or can personally volunteer for
them. In their broad meta-analysis on training transfer, Blume et al. (2010) found that voluntary
participation in training programs was one of the most predictive variables for learning transfer.
It was postulated that voluntary participation supported people’s fundamental need for
autonomy, which is related to the seminal work of Deci and Ryan (1987), which identified
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autonomy as a primary need of human beings. Working with voluntary participants has reduced
the level of resistance they have to training (Celestin & Yunfei, 2018), which can be a substantial
barrier to learning transfer.
Focusing on the effects of voluntary involvement on transfer in leadership development
settings, there was also substantial evidence of a positive impact. In their meta-analysis of 335
leadership development studies, Lacerenza et al. (2017) determined that voluntary leadership
programs had significantly higher learning transfer than mandatory ones. While there was little
debate that voluntary leadership candidates tend toward higher transfer of learning, the
implications were more debated. Some experts recommended making all leadership training
voluntary (Curado et al., 2015), using an open-enrollment approach. Others pointed out that
making leadership programs mandatory is a preferred approach (Salas et al., 2012) as it conveys
that senior leaders value these programs. Choosing to make leadership development programs
voluntary can have some countervailing impacts (Lacerenza et al., 2017), as it can increase the
overall level of participant motivation and transfer while reducing the attendance of classes,
resulting in fewer but more successful leadership trainees. It is important for leadership
development stakeholders to understand the impacts of voluntary involvement on learner
motivation and, by extension, on learning transfer.
Behavioral Factors
Searching through the literature looking for transfer drivers yielded two areas that impact
behavioral factors. For learning initiatives, behavioral factors relate to the behaviors the learning
designers are most interested in impacting. The sections below describe how integrating
behavioral practice into learning experiences, and providing feedback on the targeted behaviors,
are positive influencers on learning transfer.
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Behavioral Practice
One common technique applied by many learning designers and taught in instructional
design classes is incorporating practice into the learning experience. Creating activities where
leadership development participants practice new behaviors has been an effective way to
reinforce knowledge and form new skills (Lee, 2010). This type of practice improves learning
from one section of the training to another and increases the likelihood that the learner will
transfer new skills into the workplace. Lee described that practice opportunities that are
sequenced with incrementally increasing levels of difficulty can be very effective at building
capabilities. This is another example of the benefit of the spaced learning effect mentioned
previously.
In their meta-analysis, Lacerenza et al. (2017) made the distinction between three types
of training methods: informative methods that primarily convey information, demonstration
methods that show how new skills should be executed, and practice-centered methods that offer
learners opportunities to try out new behaviors. All methods serve important purposes in
training; however, practice-centered methods were found to be the most productive for
improving transfer and training impact because they allow learners to better understand the new
content and skills and deliver them in their environment (Weaver et al., 2010). Common practice
activities in leadership development training are role-playing, simulations, and guided practice
(Weaver et al., 2010). In their book on training evaluation, Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016)
referred to role playing and simulation as effective ways to measure the learning of new skills.
Practice is commonly viewed as the most important element to include in leadership
development (Lacerenza et al., 2017), and should not be excluded by learning designers as there
will likely be negative impacts on learning and transfer.
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Behavioral practice has strong connections to several supporting concepts in social
cognitive theory. Allowing learners to practice new skills has been a proven method for
increasing their self-efficacy (Wood & Bandura, 1989). During training experiences, practicing
typically occurs through interactions with training peers, where learners receive constructive
feedback from these peers and can assess their capabilities relative to their peers, bringing the
feedback and social comparison elements of social cognitive theory into play. And finally,
behavioral practice requires a significant amount of self-regulation (Usher & Schunk, 2019)
through planning, metacognition, and analysis of performance. In short, behavioral practice
exercises many social cognitive theory dynamics beneficial to learning transfer.
Feedback
Providing constructive feedback to those in leadership learning experiences has been a
well-accepted practice and has been proven to boost learning transfer (Lacerenza et al., 2017). In
a meta-analysis of 335 empirical studies, Lacerenza et al. (2017) found evidence that leadership
development programs that integrated feedback into the learning experience had substantially
higher learning transfer results than learning experiences without feedback in the design.
Feedback is also a dynamic that Bandura described as critical for determining self-efficacy
(Akkuzu, 2014).
While feedback can be highly useful, feedback mechanisms must be carefully designed
(Day et al., 2014; Kluger & DeNisi, 1996). Learning experience designers should consider many
factors to structure feedback mechanisms to effectively deliver the benefits they seek. The
feedback itself must be useful, and the context in which it is given should increase the receiver’s
receptivity to it. There are many subtle variables at play, and leadership development sponsors
should not assume that the provision of feedback will necessarily lead to better transfer or
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behavioral impact (Atwater & Waldman, 1998). In their research and meta-analysis on feedback,
Kluger and DeNisi (1996) found that the type of feedback and process for giving it should vary
based on the task’s complexity level. Leadership development typically employs a rich set of
knowledge and a very complex set of tasks, requiring careful feedback design. 360-degree
feedback is not required and, in fact, does not measurably add to transfer (Lacerenza et al.,
2017), which is helpful to know because implementing 360-degree feedback can be expensive.
The most useful type of feedback is understandable, informative, and actionable to
learners (Soderhjelm et al., 2021). Feedback that the learners feel provides relevant insight about
themselves and their behavior is often the most effective. This can lead to moments of realization
and clarity and is often associated with feelings of enthusiasm around growth. Recipients may
judge feedback as more accurate if it comes from strangers or through anonymous collection
methods (Soderhjelm et al., 2021). And feedback recipients need to be able to determine what to
do about the feedback if it is to impact transfer and behaviors in the workplace. There was
evidence that multiple waves of feedback are worth the effort (Day et al., 2014), resulting in
more learning and transfer. There was also some evidence that setting behavioral goals after
receiving and processing feedback adds to learning and transfer (Smither et al., 2005). All told,
the research highlighted the importance of feedback in leadership development experiences to
build knowledge and skills and provide opportunities for metacognition.
Environmental Factors
The environmental dimension of social cognitive theory includes many cultural,
organizational, and interpersonal influences that affect learning and learning transfer (Bandura,
1991, 2001). Blume et al. (2010) created three clusters of environmental factors that they defined
as support from the learner’s supervisors and peers, “transfer climate,” which included cultural
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cues that encourage or discourage transfer, and limitations of resources or authority placed on a
learner or learning initiative. The following section looks more deeply at the literature in these
categories and reinforces the overall importance of environmental factors.
Support From Supervisor (and Opportunities to Practice)
People going through leadership training experiences have supervisors, and the amount of
attention and the quality of attention paid to these learning experiences by the supervisor can
have a profound effect on the trainees. Many sources believed that supervisor support was vital
for making training effective (e.g., Blume et al., 2010; Dermol & Cater, 2013; Grossman &
Salas, 2011; Witt, 2021). Clark and Estes (2008) also shared that many believed supervisors’
behaviors and attitudes were the most impactful factor determining learning transfer. Supervisors
discussing learning experiences with their employees beforehand and being clear about their
expectations that new knowledge and skills will be put into practice have a measurably positive
influence on transfer. Supervisors’ behavior sends many signals about how important the training
is and about how fast the organization expects them to change and grow (Martin, 2010). In the
leadership development literature, supervisor support was uncommon in organizations
implementing leadership initiatives (Sørensen, 2017). However, when leadership participants felt
supervisor support, they reported feeling more engaged and effective in their application of new
leadership skills (Young et al., 2017). This suggests an important area for improvement across
the industry, for even leaders emerging with the intended knowledge and skills may decide not to
apply them if they are unconvinced of their necessity.
Supervisor support communicates to learners that learning and applying new leadership
knowledge and skills is important to the supervisor and, by extension, is important to their
organization, but the benefits of supervisor support go beyond that. Supervisors who support a
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leadership initiative can also assign activities to the leadership trainee (Soderhjelm et al., 2021;
Sørensen, 2017). This includes creating new opportunities for the learner to apply new skills on
the job, helping them apply skills through managerial coaching, and creating opportunities for
reflection and metacognition. One study found that creating opportunities to use new skills was
the most important form of supervisor support, and the lack of opportunities to apply at work
was the most significant barrier to learning transfer (Lim & Johnson, 2002). Another study
looked at eight classes of supervisor support (Govaerts et al., 2017) and found that supervisor
knowledge about the training and holding learners accountable to apply were the most important
activities. Notably, this study concluded that having the supervisor also take the same training or
coach learners on application did not improve learner transfer. These varying results across prior
research point to the need for more and broader studies to determine the specific supervisor skills
that most correlate with learner transfer.
The work lives of high-performing leadership development trainees are often very busy
and dynamic, making it hard to find time to apply recently learned skills. Supervisors can create
the time and space for transfer (Johnson et al., 2018) by adjusting the learner’s workload and
identifying opportunities to try out new skills. Supervisors can engage in ongoing conversations
about each learner’s experiences behavioralizing their learning and can provide actionable advice
or make connections to others that might help. This combination of actively supervising transfer
through workload adjustments, assignments to apply, coaching, debriefing, and offering
networking opportunities can create a combined force for transfer (Holton et al., 2007; Johnson
et al., 2018).
Much of the research on supervisor support treated the topic as a single-dimensional
concept (Govaerts, 2017), which did not offer as much insight into the dynamics and behaviors
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included in the supervisor support domain. There is a gap in the research that leaves practitioners
uninformed on the best practice for supervisors before, during, and after training to improve
learning transfer (Lancaster et al., 2013; Nijman et al., 2006; Van Der Klink et al., 2001). To
shed light on this domain, Govaerts et al. (2017) made progress toward validating 24 sub-
categories of supervisor support and 83 behavioral practices that range from before a training
effort to well after. Their findings suggest that while supervisors are sometimes aware and
supportive after leadership development training, supervisor support before and during training is
less common. Having conversations with direct reports about growth needs and goals before
training and working with leadership trainees during their learning experiences to make sure they
have the focus and time needed are examples of how supervisors can better support leadership
development efforts (Govaerts, 2017). Supervisors do not need to treat these activities as
additional responsibilities, as they can be integrated into the normal check-ins and performance
management conversations supervisors have with their direct reports (Cohen, 2013). Supervisor
support appears to have substantial potential to boost leadership development transfer both for its
effectiveness and its uncommonness.
Support From Peers
Having covered the importance of supervisor support, the next learning transfer driver
deals with the implicit and explicit encouragement that comes from learners’ peers. Many studies
have found that support from workplace peers and colleagues boosts learning transfer (Lancaster
et al., 2013; Schindler & Burkholder, 2016; Wei Tian et al., 2016; Witt, 2021). Peer support can
be seen through a social cognitive theory lens as an important influencer (Bandura, 1991, 2001).
Social comparisons can aid transfer if learners see their peers modeling these new behaviors.
Relating to leadership development programs, peer support refers to interpersonal behaviors that
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encourage a leadership learner to pursue training experiences, try out new skills in the
workplace, and discuss their experiences with coworkers. Several studies (Bhatti et al., 2013;
Blume et al., 2010; Hinrichs, 2014) described different types of peer support, such as expressing
interest in new learning, encouraging learners to apply what they have learned, participating in
opportunities to apply techniques, and expressing confidence in learner’s ability to develop new
knowledge and skills. These behaviors combine to provide critical encouragement from an
important social group for many learners. It is unclear how common peer support is, and it likely
varies across organizational environments. In one study, Sørensen (2017) found that peer support
was rated among the least common transfer variables measured. The combination of research on
the importance of peer support and early indicators that it is not widely present offer a rich area
for further learning transfer experimentation.
Peer support has also been found to be an effective tool for reducing the negative impacts
of a poor transfer climate (Martin, 2010). Learners operating with peer support in an
unsupportive environment can achieve as much learning transfer as those in a positive transfer
environment. Martin’s findings (2010) indicated that proximal variables closer to the learner,
such as peer and supervisor support, have more transfer-boosting power than distal variables
further from the learner, such as an organization’s overall transfer environment. This dynamic
has positive implications for training departments and executives rolling out leadership
development programs, suggesting that the people they can directly influence on their team or in
their department can have a major impact on leadership skill transfer.
Transfer Climate
Beyond the effect of the learner’s supervisors and peers, there are a host of other
environmental influences on learning transfer. Many of these have been collected under the term
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transfer climate. Holton et al. (2000) described the workplace transfer climate as a collection of
factors, including the cultural cues encouraging the use of learning, the sufficiency of resources
invested in learning and transfer, the existence of barriers to applying learning, and the existence
of positive and negative consequences for applying learning at work. It can be a broad grouping
of behaviors, and this collection of transfer climate factors has been found to influence learning
transfer and other training outcomes in both direct and indirect ways (Kontoghiorghes, 2001;
Lim & Morris, 2006). In a meta-analysis of the effects of work transfer climate, Ford et al.
(2018) confirmed that transfer climate has a strong impact on transfer, with social support
variables a near second. The primacy of these transfer drivers may vary based on the study and
industry, but transfer climate is commonly found to have a powerful influence. From a social
cognitive theory perspective (Bandura, 1991, 2001), the transfer climate dynamics seem to fit
within the environmental factors category, with triadic reciprocity predicting rich interactions
and influences between the factors.
One of the challenges in reviewing literature in the transfer climate domain is that several
other terms have largely overlapping definitions. Egan et al. (2004) found that an organization’s
learning culture had a significant impact on learning transfer. Another term, learning
organizations, has been used by many studies to have a meaning similar to transfer climate. One
classic definition of a learning organization by Peler et al. (1989) described a learning
organization as any organization that attends to the learning and development of its members and
invests in continuous change and improvement. Part of the concept of the learning organization
was that learning and working become integrated and intertwined, and in doing so, the daily
work tasks become the driver of learning transfer. Amplifying this idea, Blume et al. (2010)
encouraged practitioners by pointing out that achieving high degrees of learning transfer did not
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require expensive new systems and processes. Major transfer improvements can come from
incorporating learning and applying it to the most important processes and compensation systems
already in place in an organization. For leadership development training initiatives, this suggests
that substantial transfer gains can come from integrating the use of learned knowledge and skills
into the organization’s daily operations. Blume et al. (2010) also proposed that since many
environmental variables can be influenced by executives and training professionals more directly
than some other harder-to-influence variables, it gave these professionals encouragement to
proactively work these topics into their learning initiatives.
Senior Leadership Support
The level of involvement in and support of training initiatives by executives is another
environmental influence inside organizations that affects learner transfer. Several studies have
found that increases in support by senior management resulted in more learning and better
transfer of skills and behaviors into the workplace (Kim & Callahan, 2013). This senior
leadership support can take many forms, such as executives talking about training initiatives in
public settings, participating in some way in the training events, making connections between
training initiatives and strategic goals, and funding training sufficiently. It can also include role
modeling new behaviors, which could be a powerful signal for learners as seen through a social
cognitive theory lens (Bandura, 1991, 2001). These forms of support send prioritization
messages throughout an organizational environment, and just as with change initiatives,
continued visible support from senior leaders has been shown to be a critical success factor for
training programs (Clark & Estes, 2008). DeRue and Myers (2014) looked at the role of senior
leader support in leadership development programs and found that a pattern of support from
CEOs and other senior executives was critical to making leadership development programs
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successful, and specifically, to give leadership participants permission to take the time to apply
new skills and take some risks at work. Vocal support for leadership training and continuing to
fund it even during downturns sends clear messages that these programs are important to people.
It also demonstrates that senior executives care about the growth and development of their
workforce (DeRue & Myers, 2014).
Summary
In this literature review, I provided an overview and synthesis of the available research
related to the problem of low learning transfer in leadership development programs (Beer et al.,
2016). I introduced my conceptual and theoretical framework based on key factors and concepts
in social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1991, 2001). I then provided an overview of the research on
several causes of low learning transfer in an organizational setting. This was followed by a
synthesis of research on learning transfer for leadership development and related organizational
training initiatives.
This body of research was organized by the social cognitive theory factors: personal,
behavioral, and environmental factors. Under the personal/cognitive factors, the research pointed
to several possible causes of learning transfer failures: designing leadership development
experiences without a needs assessment, structuring learning experiences in one-time events,
excluding knowledge assessments in the learning experience, not clarifying the personal benefits
of the new behaviors, and making training mandatory. The synthesized literature indicates that
these practices can limit the knowledge and self-efficacy of leadership development learners. In
the behavioral domain, the literature pointed to two research-backed methods with the potential
to cultivate learning transfer: integrating rich behavioral practice and opportunities for peer and
teacher feedback into the design.
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Under the environmental factors, many important and overlapping practices were also
found in the existing research. Learners can be materially impacted by their supervisors, and the
degree to which their supervisors provide implicit and explicit support for their training and
transfer process can directly influence their degree of learning transfer. The research described
supervisor practices that might increase transfer, such as lightening their workload, coaching
them, and actively creating opportunities for them to apply new skills. Some research pointed to
supervisor support as the single most important driver of learning transfer. The literature
concluded that the reactions of colleagues and coworkers can also be very impactful on learning
transfer, as encouragement or discouragement from peers can make it easier or more difficult for
leadership development learners to experiment with new skills. In addition to supervisor and peer
influence, much research indicates that organizations’ overall transfer environment can impact
learning transfer rates. Transfer environment consists of many variables, such as the level of
funding for training and reinforcement measures and rewards and recognition for displaying new
skills. And relatedly, the level of senior leadership support can be an important variable
influencing learning transfer, according to the research. Executive support can manifest as
positive comments, role modeling of new behaviors, and other ways in which they endorse or
pay attention to training and leadership development programs. With leadership development
specifically, the literature mentioned directly involving executives in the training experience,
demonstrating the language and methods being taught, and offering to mentor participants as
examples of ways that senior leader support can be integrated into the program design. Taken
together, the literature identifies a set of techniques that offer great potential to help address this
leadership development learning transfer gap.

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Chapter Three: Methodology
The purpose of this study was to investigate the reasons leadership development
programs have had such a poor track record for transferring knowledge and new behaviors into
the workplace (Beer et al., 2016) and to identify best practices that might boost learning transfer
for new leadership programs. This study used social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1991, 2001) to
create relevant lenses for this problem. The primary research input for this study has been a set of
qualitative interviews of learning and development practitioners, those professionals most often
designing and deploying leadership development programs. This chapter provides an overview
of the research methods, design, target participants, and related considerations.
Research Questions
The primary goal of the data collection efforts for this study was to answer the following
research questions:
1. What learning transfer barriers do L&D professionals believe that leadership
development trainees encounter most at work?
2. What barriers do L&D professionals encounter most frequently when implementing
measures to boost learning transfer/application after leadership training?
3. What support & reinforcement practices do L&D professionals find most effective at
improving learning transfer?
Overview of Design
The data for this study primarily came from qualitative interviews with L&D
professionals who have overseen and executed both successful and unsuccessful leadership
development programs in their organizations. These L&D practitioners have been the people
most informed and experienced in struggling with the issues of leadership learning transfer, and
35

many of them have actively worked on the problem and experimented with many transfer-
boosting techniques. The dynamics and factors that influence learning transfer are complex, and
the perception of those influences is highly subjective. Therefore, in-depth qualitative interviews
were chosen as the best method to uncover learning transfer dynamics, capture stories about
transfer successes and failures, and spot trends in the drivers and barriers of leadership transfer.
Table 1 shows that the research questions investigated through this qualitative interview
methodology.

Table 1
Data Sources
Research questions
Qualitative
interviews
RQ1: What learning transfer barriers do L&D professionals believe that
leadership development trainees encounter most at work?
X
RQ2: What barriers do L&D professionals encounter most frequently
when implementing measures to boost learning transfer/application after
leadership training?
X
RQ3: What support and reinforcement practices do L&D professionals
find most effective at improving learning transfer?
X

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Research Setting
Organizations of all types, sizes, and nationalities have engaged in leadership
development activities of one sort or another, contributing to a global leadership development
industry exceeding $38 billion globally in 2021 (Absolute Reports, 2022). This investment level
has been seen as necessary for organizational leaders because they need to improve the
capabilities of their current leaders and develop a pipeline of future leaders. In many of these
organizations, leadership development has been formalized into structured learning programs
that are managed and taught within a part of the human resources department specialized in
training and coaching employees. This group can have many names but is often referred to as
L&D (Barratt-Pugh et al., 2020). Given that the purpose of this study was to identify key drivers
of and barriers to leadership development learning transfer, the research setting for this study
could be described as organizational L&D departments.
The interviews engaged 12 L&D practitioners, focusing on those with many experiences
overseeing leadership development programs. These professionals have been the most
knowledgeable about driving leadership development effectiveness and the most likely to be able
to share insights related to the three research questions above. Attention was paid to ensuring that
the interviewees represented a range of tenure levels in L&D assignments, worked in at least six
different industries, and were geographically diverse. This increased the probability that the
insights from the interviews were more representative of L&D practitioners overall. Given that
these L&D practitioners were located around the globe, online video meetings were used.
The Researcher
I am a White, able-bodied, cisgender male in my mid-50s, born and raised in the United
States, and in the top 10% of household income. I am heterosexual and have been in a stable
37

married relationship for over 25 years, with two healthy heterosexual children. In terms of other
identities that affect my worldview, I am liberal politically, educated, and consider myself an
open-minded and broadly tolerant person. I have been an executive for 20 years and have served
on my organization’s senior leadership team for over 10 years. In short, I have been in a position
of high privilege for my entire life. I have a pragmatic worldview (Creswell & Creswell, 2018)
that looks practically at research problems and focuses most on solutions that address the issue.
I have a deep and direct relationship with the research setting, having been an executive
in a top leadership development vendor for 12 years. My role includes developing state-of-the-art
leadership and soft-skills development programs and creating new training content, videos,
online learning modules, assessments, and other related training assets. My role also includes
acting as a subject matter expert with clients on leadership development content and practices
and on driving research and thought leadership related to these topics for my firm. I interact
weekly with L&D practitioners, buyers, instructional designers, leadership experts, and training
effectiveness analysts.
I had several assumptions and biases related to leadership development practices and
learning transfer drivers and barriers, and I referred to the list when synthesizing interviews. One
assumption was the belief that I could easily spot key insights during interviews. While my 10
years of industry experience helped me to understand people’s comments, I worked to stay open
and present during interviews. The two types of bias I was most watchful of were confirmation
bias (Gray, 2010) and recency bias (Turvey & Freeman, 2012). Confirmation bias may have led
me to see patterns I assumed to be there and not see patterns I was not expecting. Recency bias
could have caused me to focus more on the recently conducted and synthesized interviews than
the whole body of interviews. If I allowed these biases and assumptions to influence the
38

research, it could detract from the findings and recommendations and significantly limit the
validity of the results. To mitigate the likelihood of confirmation and recency bias affecting my
research, I referred frequently to my assumptions as I conducted and synthesized interviews and
kept global tallies of trends across the interviews as I coded and synthesized them.
Data Sources
The section below describes the details of the participants and the data collection and
analysis methods used in this study. The data collection method was qualitative interviewing,
using a semi-structured questionnaire as the primary data source for this study.
Participants
The target respondents were experienced L&D managers within medium to large
organizations around the world that have rolled out several leadership development programs in
their careers. Learning and development professionals are those trainers, instructional designers,
and initiative managers who specialize in corporate training and upskilling of the workforce
(Brassey et al., 2019). This is a specialized department within organizations’ human resources
groups. It is often staffed with a small number of highly dedicated people with either
organizational development or educational backgrounds. It is also the function most often tasked
with overseeing leadership development programs, which L&D people consider to be among the
most important programs they manage.
For these interviews, I spoke to L&D professionals who had experienced some success
and some failure regarding leadership development learning transfer. I used a purposeful
sampling approach (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) to select 15 to 20 people with at least 5 years of
leadership development expertise willing to undergo a 1-hour interview. I identified participants
through industry contacts, collecting names of relevant individuals and sending them an email
39

requesting their participation. I also asked them to nominate other well-fitting candidates using a
snowball sampling technique (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016), as the L&D industry is well-connected.
I believed that most people I approached would be willing to participate, and, therefore, I
recruited 20 people to achieve 12 completed interviews. I offered participants a summary report
of key findings to give them some benefit from the time they spent with me.
Instrumentation
I used semi-structured interviews (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I had a pre-determined and
vetted set of approximately 10 questions that I used somewhat flexibly to gather the critical
information. I varied the order of the questions based on the respondents’ comments and pursued
interesting remarks and lines of questioning as they arose. I had a set of probing comments and
backup questions available as well. I felt that the semi-structured approach was the best way to
explore respondents’ perceptions and experiences while making sure to address the most critical
questions, and I felt it was most likely to uncover unexpected best practices and other facets of
this issue.
My data collection instrument included open-ended questions (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016)
designed to gather broader insights and comments that indicated respondents’ beliefs and
experiences. The questionnaire started with one or two quick opening questions designed to learn
about the respondents and eased them into the more challenging dialog. All other questions on
this instrument were directly linked to the three research questions, with several items for each
research question to increase the chance of gathering the most accurate and complete picture
from respondents. Most questions were focused on drivers of and barriers to learning transfer.
The interview questions also covered the personal, behavioral, and environmental factors of
social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1991, 2001) and could be coded to concepts such as self-
40

efficacy, self-regulation, feedback, role modeling, and social comparisons. Interview questions
are visible in Appendix A.
Data Collection Procedures
Respondents were sent a short questionnaire 2 weeks before the interview to gather some
initial information about them and confirm that they met the interview criteria for this research.
Interviewees were sent a meeting invitation with an online meeting link shortly thereafter for a 1-
hour online call. I opened the Zoom room 10 minutes before each call, greeted the respondent,
read them a short introduction, and confirmed that they were willing to participate in a recorded
interview. For those that approved, I started the recording and proceeded with the interview.
The interviews took 50–75 minutes using the questions listed in Table 2. I took notes on a
blank questionnaire paying close attention to their comments and affect. I ended the interviews
by thanking each respondent. I listened to the recording and reviewed the transcriptions within a
few hours of each interview (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016), updating my transcription notes and
annotations. Recordings will be deleted after my dissertation work is complete.

Table 2
Interview Questions, Research Questions Addressed, and Key Concepts Addressed
Interview questions Research questions
addressed
Key concepts addressed
1. Please describe your role and the
organization in which you work. What
leadership development programs have
you rolled out? How would you describe
the culture in your organization?
Background and
warm-up question
Environmental factors
2. For the typical leadership development
participant, what is it like for them
returning to work? What factors keep
RQ1 Environmental factors,
role models, social
41

Interview questions Research questions
addressed
Key concepts addressed
them from applying their new knowledge
and skills in their work?
comparisons,
feedback
3. What has your group done to help and
encourage participants to apply their new
skills after their program? How much
transfer do you expect without transfer-
boosting measures in place?
RQ3 Could touch on all
aspects of social
cognitive theory, self-
efficacy, and possibly
others
4. What reinforcement measures have you
found are most effective there? Least
effective there? Partially effective?
RQ3 Could touch on all
aspects of social
cognitive theory
5. How have participants’ supervisors
influenced the degree to which they
applied their new knowledge and skills?
What experience have you had activating
supervisors to this end?
RQ1, RQ3, RQ2 Environmental factors,
role models, feedback
6. How do environmental aspects such as
culture, leaders, coworkers, and rewards
and recognition influence learning
transfer there? Please describe the
experiences you have had influencing
these factors to boost transfer?
RQ1, RQ3, RQ2 Environmental factors,
role models, social
comparison
7. What has most limited you as an L&D
professional from reinforcing training
and encouraging learners to apply (e.g.,
budget, time, leader support, lack of
influence)?
RQ2 Could touch on all
aspects of KMO and
social cog
8. If budget was not an issue, what post-
training measures would you use to boost
application?
RQ3 Could touch on all
aspects of social
cognitive theory,
9. What wisdom would you pass on to
others on how to make leadership
development stick?
RQ3 Could touch on all
aspects of KMO and
social cog
10. Have you observed ways in which
diversity/equity/inclusion issues have
limited people’s abilities to become
leaders and transfer leadership skills?
RQ1 Could touch on all
aspects of KMO and
social cog

42

Data Analysis
I took the written, annotated interview results and analyzed each in detail. I coded
potential key points and themes in each interview (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007; Merriam & Tisdell,
2016), then reviewed the research questions and my list of assumptions and biases. I moved
through the interviews progressively revising common thematic codes and adding new ones,
always pausing to refer to the research questions, assumptions, and biases. This approach of
recursively focusing narrowly on the details of interviews and then focusing broadly on the
research questions was an effective technique, as described by Merriam and Tisdell (2016). After
all interviews were analyzed and coded, I aggregated those codes and mapped them to the
research questions to see what transfer practices, drivers, and barriers emerged. I tallied the
themes to see which were most common and created linkages between them where coded themes
seemed connected or interrelated. I formed a map using the resulting set of themes, with
frequency scores and linkages, to convey the key insights from the interviews.
Validity and Reliability
Participant selection incorporated several criteria to boost the reliability and
trustworthiness of the study. I looked for interviewees across several tenure ranges, industries,
and geographic regions to increase the probability that these interviews were representative of
L&D practitioners in general. I employed member checks and adequate engagement to boost
validity and credibility (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The concept of adequate engagement was
described by Merriam and Tisdale (2016) as gathering enough information that the researcher
hears the same answers being repeated by respondents. I experienced this after 8 or 9 interviews
and therefore felt that the 12 conducted interviews were sufficiently representative of the target
43

group. Finally, I talked to researcher peers and professors to discuss qualitative synthesis
methods.
Ethics
In the data-gathering phase of the research, I only included participants if they
volunteered to be interviewed (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). I described the research and the
interview and panel processes to make sure potential participants understood what was being
asked of them before I asked them for their voluntary involvement. During this upfront
conversation, I informed them that I hoped to record the interview and panel discussion for the
purpose of notetaking (Creswell & Creswell, 2018) and that these recordings would not be
shared or used in any other way. I also asked the participants at the beginning of the interview
and panel sessions to confirm verbally that they agreed to be recorded. The summary report of
findings offered to all participants will help provide them with some fair benefit for their time.
During the interviews and panel sessions, I ensured that the instrument was as
streamlined as possible with no unnecessary questions to avoid wasting the time of the
respondents (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). I consciously treated each respondent consistently,
refraining from showing more interest or affinity for a subset of the respondents. I probed and
clarified but avoided coercive comments or behavior (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). After the
interviews were completed and throughout the rest of the project, I kept the participants’
identities confidential and anonymized their contributions. I consciously worked to minimize the
influence on my analyses of my biases and assumptions and avoided giving preferential
treatment or ascribing more influence to some respondents over others (Creswell & Creswell,
2018). I sought to identify and share multiple perspectives for each issue and not just amplify
those responses that confirm my pre-research beliefs.
44

Limitations and Delimitations
The primary limitations of this study were related to the participants’ responses and
behavior. It’s not certain whether respondents were honest and transparent about their negative
and positive experiences, and whether they exaggerated or altered their comments. It’s also
unclear whether this group is representative of the broader group of L&D professionals.
There were many delimitations at play in this study. The participant selection criteria and
the number of interviews may not have yielded insights that adequately answer the research
questions. The data collection and insights might have been skewed by interviewing just L&D
professionals and not including leadership development participants or other stakeholders. The
conceptual and theoretical framework focused on social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1991, 2001)
may have introduced some critical blind spots into the study. The research and interview
questions may have overlooked important facets of the learning transfer problem domain. These
were all risks; however, I believe that the choices I made for the conceptual framework, research
questions, data collection methods, and target respondents were logical and likely to yield
actionable findings.

45

Chapter Four: Findings
The purpose of this study was to identify the principal drivers of and barriers to learning
transfer within the field of leadership development training. Much money and time are invested
in leadership development programs (Kaiser & Curphy, 2013), but most organizations see little
transfer of learned behaviors from leadership training into the workplace (Beer et al., 2016). By
identifying the drivers of and barriers to leadership learning transfer, this research sought to
create meaningful recommendations and best practices to improve learning transfer in leadership
development initiatives.
Participants
The central data source for this research was semi-structured interviews with 12 senior
and highly experienced L&D managers at organizations ranging from 3,000 to 260,000
employees. These individuals all had more than 10 years of experience managing leadership and
other training programs and had both positive and negative experiences rolling out leadership
development initiatives. These professionals are a specialty in the human resources function and
focus on training, instructional design, and other methods to upskill and retool their workforce.
Key information for interview respondents is listed in Table 3. Respondents were
relatively senior, often holding the most senior title that was still directly responsible for
leadership development. Eleven industries were represented by these 12 respondents, who led
leadership development at their organizations. In aggregate, these respondents managed
leadership development programs for 596,000 employees across North America and Europe. All
respondents were given a pseudonym to anonymize their identity.

46

Table 3
Participant Summary Information
Pseudonym Role Industry Number of
employees
Otto Head of global leadership development Automotive 13,0000
Inez Senior manager leadership development Insurance 3,000
Teshawn Director of talent Manufacturing 14,000
Larry Director of learning and development Legal 4,000
Mona Head of leadership development Finance 260,000
Grover Chief learning officer Government 8,000
Farah Director, U.S. leadership development Pharmaceuticals 50,000
Bo Head of learning and development Biotechnology 75,000
Eden Head of leadership development Education 8,000
Beverly Director of leadership development Food & beverage 18,000
Mandy Global learning and development
manager
Manufacturing 7,000
Fiona Talent development manager Finance 19,000

All respondents were interviewed using a questionnaire included in the Appendix. The
interviews were semi-structured, allowing comments to be explored and additional topics to be
considered. Interviews lasted between 45 and 75 minutes, depending on the respondent’s
verbosity and the number of insights they had to share. All interviews were recorded,
transcribed, coded, analyzed into themes discussed below, and deleted.
Research Question 1: Learner Transfer Barriers
The first research question for this study was “What learning transfer barriers do L&D
professionals believe that leadership development trainees encounter most at work?” The
interviewed L&D professionals spoke about interacting with learners before, during, and after
training initiatives. They talk to their employees about their developmental needs, morale,
workload, and management challenges. This research question is the first of two meant to
illuminate the challenges and realities that limit learning transfer in the workplace following
47

leadership development programs. Understanding the common transfer barriers can result in
leadership solutions with a higher potential to transfer skills and achieve sought-after outcomes.
There were several ways in which respondents were asked to describe what keeps their
typical leadership development participants from applying the new skills they have learned. They
were asked to describe what it is like for these participants to balance work and training. They
were asked about participants’ feelings and willingness to try out new skills and were asked to
identify any other barriers or discouragements to learning transfer. Respondents were encouraged
to tell stories about situations they can remember. Analyzing respondents’ comments generated
eight patterns which were then, based on the recurrence of the patterns, synthesized into three
predominant themes on learner transfer barriers, listed in Table 4.

Table 4
Learner Transfer Barrier Themes and Respondent Data
Themes Number of respondents
mentioning theme
Percent of respondents
mentioning theme
Workload barrier 12 100%
Reluctance due to inexperience 6 50%
Unsupportive supervisors 6 50%

48

High learner workload was prevalent and widespread, making it very hard for learners to
find the time to use new knowledge and skills, which all respondents mentioned. As shown in
Figure 2, the workload barrier is most closely aligned with social cognitive theory’s (SCT’s)
environmental factors (Bandura, 1991, 2001) since supervisors and executives assign workload,
and environmental responsibilities and pressures often drive the pressure to keep up with that
workload. Half of the respondents said that learners are often reluctant to apply new leadership
skills when they do not feel competent or confident in their ability to execute them well. This
reluctance to apply new skills due to inexperience is most associated with SCT’s personal
factors, as shown in Figure 2, where a learner’s knowledge, motivation, and attitudes come into
play. Half of the respondents also mentioned unsupportive or disinterested supervisors. These
supervisors diminished learner motivation to apply new skills. Supervisors are one of the
stakeholder groups that influence SCT’s environmental factors. These collective barriers are
described and analyzed in more detail below.

49

Figure 2
Association of Learner Transfer Barriers With Social Cognitive Theory Factors

Workload Barrier
The most prevalent issue limiting transfer across organizations is the volume of work and
lack of free time, which are common conditions for leadership development program
participants. This issue is recognized in the literature (Rainbird & Munro, 2003; Saks, 2013) and
was described by every respondent and mentioned early in the discussion of transfer barriers.
Eden described the issue as a lack of “time and workload pressure” that leaves no spare moments
to plan for and apply new skills. According to Otto, “Nothing is taken off of people’s plates, and
they come back to a pile of work.” This is especially true for event-based training, where work
might be accumulating for days while people are involved in workshops or other training events.
50

Bo added that there are “too many competing priorities. … It’s perceived lack of time” that
plagues learners. And Grover summarized the situation well by sharing that “workload is the
enemy [of transfer]. … Their workload is ridiculous.” Respondents unanimously felt that heavy
workload was the predominant barrier blocking learners from readily applying new skills back
on the job. Applying new skills often requires mindfulness and planning, and most leadership
development participants struggle to find the time and attention to make this happen. The
respondents did not feel that they had much control over the level of workload and pressure that
leadership development participants experienced while acknowledging that these participants are
among the busiest people in their organizations.
Unsupportive Supervisors
Another prevalent issue that diminishes leadership development learning transfer is the
lack of support given to learners by their direct supervisor (D’Annunzio-Green & Barron, 2019;
Saks, 2013). This issue can range from passive supervisor apathy about training to active
discouragement and even derision. Respondents pointed out the influential role of supervisors in
many ways. Bo described supervisors as “the biggest barrier” to adoption, saying that their
leadership participants’ “biggest question is, will my manager support me in this new behavior?”
Bo added, “Before they get out of the classroom, they’re already anticipating an obstacle with
their manager.” This expectation of poor supervisor support was common and seemed hard to
resolve for some respondents. According to Grover, “unless the upline leader is following up, …
and unless the upline leader is making the time, … nothing is going to go anywhere, no matter
what you do.” Supervisors’ support can include asking questions about the learning and
application of new ideas, checking in on their learners’ successes and failures, and dedicating
time to focus on applying new skills from training. Fiona described that learners do not
51

commonly get much support or attention from their managers in their organization. Fiona shared
that “supervisor involvement is the missing link” at their organization. Many respondents
recognized the special importance that learners’ supervisors have in either discouraging or
encouraging the application of new skills. Social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1991, 2001)
highlights the importance of social stakeholders in the learning process, and it appears from
respondents’ comments that learners’ supervisors were the most influential stakeholders in their
organizations. This paper also discusses supervisor involvement as a driver of learning transfer
and one that L&D practitioners can directly influence.
Reluctance Due to Inexperience
The third learner transfer barrier communicated by respondents was the reticence of
learners to apply their new skills and behaviors driven by their low experience and low
confidence. This can be referred to in the literature as low perceived self-efficacy, and many
researchers have talked about the relationship between self-efficacy and training transfer
(Heilmann et al., 2013; Islam & Ahmed, 2018; Quratulain et al., 2021). Six respondents
commented on learner reluctance to use new behaviors. Eden described learners’ “lack of
confidence” as a major obstacle to application. Leadership participants often think, “I don’t
know if I feel confident enough to take it back to my team,” according to Beverly. And Grover
said, “This tendency to be extremely risk averse” often limits learners’ willingness to try new
skills with their team. This reluctance fueled by inexperience is a dilemma because it’s difficult
for future leaders to develop new skills if they are unwilling to experiment with them.
Whether leadership learners feel too busy to consider applying new skills, feel reluctant
to try new skills with their teams, or receive mixed or even discouraging messages from their
supervisor, respondents identified substantial barriers blocking learning transfer. This
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underscores that learning transfer is fragile. Since applying new skills requires extra attention
and foresight, and some support from others, these issues can be fatal. It is not surprising that
learning transfer rates are low (Beer et al., 2016; Govaerts, 2017).
Research Question 2: Learning and Development Transfer Obstacles
The second research question for this study was, “What barriers do L&D professionals
encounter most frequently when implementing measures to boost learning transfer/application
after leadership training?” Respondents were asked about the obstacles and limitations they
personally experience that block them from implementing processes and procedures to increase
learning transfer with leadership learners. This research question created a stream of emotionally
laden and consistent information from the senior L&D practitioners interviewed. The coding
process detected six possible patterns, with three patterns appearing clear enough to be included
in these findings. These three patterns and the number and percentage of respondents that
mentioned them are listed in Table 5.

Table 5
Learning and Development Learning Transfer Obstacle Themes and Respondents
Themes Number of respondents
mentioning theme
Percent of respondents
mentioning theme
High L&D workload 11 92%
Staffing and budget limitations 11 92%
Delivery focus 7 58%

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The first pattern was that 11 out of 12 L&D practitioners interviewed described their high
workloads as a common issue blocking them from spending more time on reinforcement work.
Figure 3 associates this workload barrier with the environmental factors of SCT (Bandura, 1991,
2001), given that superiors and work colleagues provide workload expectations to L&D staff.
The next barrier shared by 92% of respondents was staffing and budget limitations that force
L&D departments to struggle to get by with fewer people and less vendor and contactor
assistance than they would prefer. This issue is related to the workload barrier and is also linked
to SCT’s environmental factors. Finally, 58% of L&D respondents talked about their focus on
leadership training delivery rather than on training transfer. This attention on training tasks was a
behavioral barrier associated with SCT’s behavioral factors, but also tied to the high
environmental expectations placed on L&D staff from business leaders and executives. These
themes are analyzed further in the following section.

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Figure 3
Association of Learning and Development Transfer Obstacles With Social Cognitive Theory
Factors

High Learning and Development Workload
Based on my 12 years of experience in this industry, L&D departments tend to be staffed
in a very lean manner. This phenomenon was confirmed by 11 of the 12 respondents, who shared
that the high average workload in the L&D department was a primary barrier to leadership
development learning transfer. Because L&D practitioners have too much work, they are unable
to spend significant time on learning transfer-boosting activities. “We don’t have the
bandwidth,” shared Bo. Beverly framed it as “we didn’t have the capacity.” According to Farah,
55

“The greatest challenge is just time. … We’re stretched pretty thin.” And Larry agreed: “We’re
limited by time and bandwidth.” Most respondents had a similar comment on the high level of
workload with no way to avoid it. Farah said that their L&D staff have “no time to focus on pull-
through” and cannot “figure out and navigate what the pull-through should be,” using “pull-
through” to mean creating learner demand to pull the behaviors through into their work lives.
These leadership development managers saw learning transfer as a goal that would require
significant L&D time to manage, and they tended to agree that the workload in their L&D
departments was too high to allow this work to be taken on and executed well.
Staffing and Budget Limitations
Another common learning transfer obstacle experienced by L&D respondents was having
insufficient staffing and budgets. These issues meant that L&D teams had little to no staff or
dollars to invest in leadership development learning transfer tasks. Covering the combined topics
of staff levels and budget, Mona said their group “doesn’t have any people and doesn’t have
enough dollars,” and Bo stated, “We don’t have budget or people.” Focusing in on just the
staffing challenges, Mandy said, “People! We need more people in the team so that they can
actually focus on this kind of activity.” And several respondents shared the small size of their
teams relative to other departments to highlight the problem. According to Inez’s, “There’s only
four of us essentially doing the bulk of this work,” and Bo’s comments, “we have four people to
handle [leadership development for] 75,000 employees.” Grover shared that “the biggest barrier
is the number of people and the capacity in the L&D department” and added, “We don’t have
people dedicated to the care and feeding of our leaders. We would need to staff up.” Comments
about low staff levels in these departments were common and consistent.
56

Respondents also pointed to insufficient budgets as blockers of learning transfer because
transfer-boosting activities often require financial investment. Inez believed that making
leadership transfer progress is “going to require more funding.” Mona contextualized this
challenge by saying, “Leadership development has been not an area of investment for probably
the last 5 to 7 years.” “We’re probably spending tens of dollars on leadership development per
employee when it should be thousands of dollars,” added Mona. This combination of insufficient
staff to manage learning transfer projects, and insufficient budget to spend on technology or
outsourced assistance, is a widely prevalent obstacle to leadership development learning transfer.
Delivery Focus
Closely related to high L&D workload, insufficient staff, and thin budgets, respondents
also described the realities of their L&D staff focusing most of their leadership development time
on the administration and delivery of leadership development programs with little time to invest
after training on learning transfer. Leadership development programs are often complex
initiatives serving the most important groups of high-potential individuals within organizations.
To implement these programs, L&D staff must complete many administrative tasks and
personally handle facilitating workshops, discussion forums, and coaching sessions.
Underscoring this necessity, Larry shared, “My people spend the majority of their time on
planning and delivering classes,” and Grover added that their staff are “spending about 75% of
their time in active service delivery.” Inez’s staff are “doing a lot of project management and
project leading.” These heavy implementation loads leave little time for transfer and keep L&D
staff members from building transfer-boosting skills and knowledge.
Respondents recognized that little time was being spent on learning transfer. Larry said
that “not much [time] is spent on reinforcement or follow-up,” and Inez “could use more
57

administrative support.” Three respondents reported that they were, in fact, dedicating a minority
of staff attention away from delivery and learning transfer of leadership development programs.
“The group is spending most of its time planning and delivering and not that much of its time on
following up with people and doing reinforcement,” according to Bo. Grover reported that
“probably 10% of the time [is spent] on follow-up and end-user support.” And with the highest
allocation to transfer, Beverly shared that their organization “spends 75% on facilitation and 25%
on sustainment.” Reflecting the dedication to learning transfer, Beverly aspires to “flip that
percentage [next year].” The incessant need for L&D staff to plan and manage training events,
handle administrative tasks, and facilitate training sessions, leaves little time for learning transfer
work, and has left L&D staff with few chances to experiment with learning transfer methods or
master related skills.
In summary, the three key themes that emerged from these interviews were highly
interrelated. Senior L&D respondents responsible for driving leadership development programs
reported several barriers related to staffing levels and funding. Their existing team had a
workload that often seemed unachievable. They had insufficient staff to take on learning transfer
tasks. They had insufficient budget to hire more people, outsource labor, or invest in software or
services to boost learning transfer. And all this kept L&D staff members from learning key
transfer skills and experiencing those learning transfer measures that might be most effective in
their organization. Respondents’ comments created a clear picture of an entrenched set of L&D
obstacles that will be hard to overcome.
Research Question 3: Transfer-Boosting Practices
The third research question for this study was “What support and reinforcement practices
do L&D professionals find most effective at improving learning transfer?” This was the central
58

question of this research, meant to explore the variety of training reinforcement and transfer
methods that leadership development professionals have tried. There were several questions in
the interview protocol to explore transfer-boosting practices, and much interview time was spent
discussing the transfer practices that respondents had tried and the practices that they found most
and least effective. For that reason, there are more themes described for research Question 3 than
there were for Questions 1 and 2. Respondents were asked what techniques they have
implemented to date and which have been effective at driving transfer. They were asked to share
stories about how these methods might have succeeded or failed. Respondents were asked
specifically about any steps they have taken to leverage supervisors, peers, or senior leaders to
drive transfer. And they were asked to share any other environmental support or encouragements
they have explored, such as post-training reminders, rewards, recognition programs, or
measuring the presence of learned behaviors through the organization’s performance
management system. Finally, respondents were asked which transfer-boosting methods they
would use if time and budget were not a factor. This last question is meant to identify those
methods that are truly most effective. A great deal of useful data was gathered from these
interviews. The coding analysis identified 36 patterns which were synthesized into 13 strong
themes. These themes were organized into three categories below.
The first set of themes from the interviews was related to the design of the leadership
development learning experience. These themes are listed in Table 6 with the number of
respondents that mentioned each theme. Seventy-five percent of respondents said that leadership
learning designs that were spaced out over time were more conducive to learning transfer than
those that were completed in a single event. Designs that incorporate short learning assets, tools,
and job aids were more likely to achieve learning transfer. Learning designs that incorporate
59

learners’ real work assignments, and those designs that include activities where learners
consciously plan how they will apply new knowledge and skills, were more likely to transfer into
new behaviors, according to 58% and 50% of respondents, respectively. Also, learning designs
that form peer groups to experience the learning together and create peer support and
accountability, often referred to as “cohorts,” were believed to increase the chances of learning
transfer by 67% of those interviewed.

Table 6
Transfer-Boosting Practices Themes and Respondent Data
Themes Number of respondents
mentioning theme
Percent of respondents
mentioning theme
Design of leadership programs
Spaced learning design 9 75%
Incorporating work into training 7 58%
Incorporating action planning 6 50%
Cohort groups 8 67%
Accessible tools and job aids 6 50%
Post-training activities
Reminders and follow-ups 9 75%
Coaching services 8 67%
Application sessions 7 58%
Environmental encouragement
Supervisor involvement 12 100%
Executive involvement 10 83%
Peer communities 6 50%

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As shown in Figure 4, the practices of stretching the learning design, doing real work in
training, and doing action planning in training are most linked to the behavioral factors in
Bandura’s (2001) SCT model. The practice of giving short and accessible learning tools to
leadership participants serves the personal factors in SCT. Respondents described using cohorts
of peers to practice new behavior patterns, create environmental support and accountability, and
increase skills and motivation. This practice is a combination of all three SCT factors,
exemplifying SCT’s triadic reciprocity. Together, these learning design practices underscore the
many variables that can be considered in designing leadership learning experiences and highlight
the transfer-boosting capabilities of some design choices.

Figure 4
Association of Transfer-Boosting Practices With Social Cognitive Theory Factors

61

Shifting focus to after the completion of leadership learning experience, respondents
described several post-training activities that can boost transfer. Participants believe that
reminders and follow-ups to learners can help them remember what they learned and be more
mindful of opportunities to apply their new knowledge and skills. Offering learners coaching
services is believed to be an effective transfer accelerator. Many L&D practitioners point to
application sessions, where leadership learners are brought together after training to talk about
their experiences and share advice, as an effective way to increase learning transfer. Through an
SCT lens (Bandura, 1991, 2001), reminders and follow-ups are a behavioral factor, and coaching
services and application sessions both activate all three SCT factors exemplifying triadic
reciprocity. These are specific practices that can be applied after training initiatives for L&D
teams that have the time and resources to invest in them.
The third category of leadership development learning transfer accelerators is focused on
environmental influences. The most influential stakeholder identified by respondents was the
leadership development participants’ supervisors, who often were not involved in leadership
initiatives but had much impact on these learners. Senior leaders and executives in participants’
organizations are a second highly influential group that can be activated to boost leadership
learning transfer. Respondents told many stories related to the benefits of peer communities on
learning and transfer. These measures are all environmental factors within the SCT structure
(Bandura, 1991, 2001), as shown in Figure 4. All 13 transfer-boosting practices will be analyzed
further in the following section.
Design of Leadership Program
The first collection of interview themes relates to how the leadership development
program is architected and what learning methods are incorporated into the design. The literature
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review in Chapter Two highlighted many instructional and experience design variables that are
considered prerequisites for learning transfer. This section will highlight the practices identified
by the senior L&D professionals interviewed.
Spaced Learning Design
The first pattern recognized was the practice of designing leadership training experiences
that are spaced out over many weeks, months, or years. Stretching the learning experience over
time, often referred to as “spaced learning”, has been proven to enhance many learning outcomes
(Donovan & Radosevich, 1999). Teshawn described a system of extended “learning journeys
that play out over multiple months that cover five career phases [for leaders].” Mona designs
their leadership development as “learning journeys in phases” with separate stages for
“consuming information” and others for “demonstrate what you’re learning.” Grover shared that
their leadership development experiences are designed in the form of “spaced out multi-month
paths” with a “12-month advanced leadership program” reserved for high-potential leaders. This
was a common best practice among respondents even if they were not especially aware of it.
Interviewers described a wide range of durations for spaced leadership experiences, spanning
from several months to one 3-year design. Creating spaced leadership experiences does have its
costs. Fiona shared, “When we move towards the space designs, it creates a lot more
administrative load.” Respondents did not offer solutions for how they might handle this
additional operational load, given the resource limitations also described in this chapter.
Incorporating Work Into Training
A second learning transfer-boosting instructional design theme in the interview data was
architecting leadership learning experiences to integrate participants’ actual work assignments.
These L&D practitioners believe that this will have many benefits, including increasing the
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retention of the leadership participants, increasing the relevance of learning new skills, and
lowering some of the time pressure on these learners by working on some of their pressing
priorities. Beverly shared that participants in their programs “actually work on their real work in
the training class.” Their participants choose an actual work relationship to focus on. “Then, we
move them through the modules, we talk about their performance challenge, and then we do a
breakout session at the end around that same employee’s development.” Teshawn integrates
“project work” into their leadership experiences. Farah pointed out that another approach to
incorporating work into training is to “use work assignments between training events” rather
than building them into classroom time. Bo said, “we try to incorporate [learners’] specific work
in our flagship programs,” indicating that they reserve work task integration for their more senior
levels of leadership. Incorporating work tasks that are on leadership participants’ minds is an
effective way to teach with high relevance, build relevance, and create some immediate benefits
from the time invested in training.
Incorporating Action Planning
Another instructional design method that respondents believed can increase learning
transfer was to build mindful action planning into the leadership learning experience. This often
took the form of having learners document some intentions and plans for applying their new
knowledge and skills at work and identifying a few challenges and/or people on which to focus
Teshawn “builds in action planning” to all his leadership programs. “I would like to have after
each training some actions plans from the individuals,” and Teshawn wants every participant “to
go through those action plans and be accountable for that.” Otto had all participants “set a plan
with clear expectations for when and how” they will start to apply. Bo described having
participants sketch out a plan of action, and “had people schedule outlook requests [for] weeks
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later” to follow through on plans. Sometimes, respondents gave participants some guidance
around action planning, such as recommended steps to take. While action planning was seen as
very beneficial, some respondents pointed out that it was not powerful alone. Asking participants
to think about how they might apply their new skills creates intentionality, uses metacognition,
and encourages learning transfer by associating it with goals and tasks these leaders already care
about.
Cohort Groups
The next technique espoused by L&D respondents was designing learning experiences
using cohorts, groups of learners that spend time together and bond. The use of cohort groups of
learners has been associated in the literature with positive learning outcomes and transfer (Zhang
et al., 2018). This approach puts SCT (Bandura, 1991, 2001) into action, creating social groups
that learn together and influence each other’s developmental experiences. Fiona starts most
leadership programs with cohorts of “4–6 people” wanting to “build more of a culture of support
and community… across the weeks and months” and forms “small groups that are expected to
meet on a regular basis to help keep that learning going.” Teshawn builds “group working and
problem solving” into their leadership journeys. “A huge part of the experience was making
connections with people they don’t normally connect with in the class,” added Otto. Several
respondents spoke of starting with shorter term groups and extending the duration over time due
to their success. An example is Grover who pulls people together for “cohort reunions after the
fact.” Respondents also shared that cohort groups can create accountability partners and identify
peer leaders who can become ambassadors or future facilitators. These respondents see the use of
cohorts of learners who support each other, share tips and experiences, and create some peer-to-
peer accountability to boost learning transfer.
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Accessible Tools and Job Aids
There were many comments from L&D respondents about incorporating tools that help
learners apply new skills into their leadership learning experiences. This is another way that
instructional designers are helping learners bridge the transfer gap between learning and
application by giving them job aids, videos, worksheets, and other tools that are easy to consume
and access. Mona focuses on offering “resources that will help [learners] be more effective as a
manager and create different opportunities for them to engage those resources outside of the
formal classroom.” Bo summarized that the intention of L&D respondents is to help leadership
participants “learn what they need to learn at the time they want to learn it, so it’s all on
demand.” Bo reflected respondents’ interest in giving learners easy access to “get what they need
when they want it.” Mona added that “We’re taking all of those learning resources that would
have only traditionally been available in a formal classroom, and we’re putting them out on a
shared space” so that their emerging leaders don’t have to “think about the LMS,” referring to
the learning management software platforms used by many organizations to coordinate training
classes. Mona’s practice of placing these assets outside the LMS reflects common beliefs that
LMSs are not appreciated or frequently visited by users. The provision of helpful, easy-to-access
assets and tools that help support learners as they apply new skills is a common theme from
respondents.
Many of these experience design methods can increase the probability of learning transfer
because they blend the learning and working experiences to stimulate a new pattern of behavior
that could become habitual. Stretching the learning experience out over time helps with retention
but also increases the opportunities for learners to integrate real work tasks into the learning by
choosing real tasks and relationships for learning activities and assignments. Explicitly
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incorporating work tasks into the design accomplishes this integration, and adding action-
planning activities gets learners mindfully planning and scheduling conversations and follow-ups
that can start a new pattern of usage. Cohort groups can add social learning benefits and build
experience and accountability to drive transfer. And this is reinforced by providing useful
support tools that can assist leadership learners as they prepare to try new skills and behaviors.
These measures all can help to set up leadership learners to smoothly transition from their
learning experience back into their work lives with some improved leadership behaviors.
Post-Training Activities
Moving from the design practices focused during the primary learning experience to
those focused after the learning experience, one-half to two-thirds of leadership development
professionals identified the same three practices that they believe in. These seasoned
professionals responsible for leadership development believe that learner reminders and follow-
ups are important methods for keeping the learning top of mind. They described coaching
services as a potent method for helping leadership learners apply new skills and create new
habits. And they are investing their time in post-training sessions that encourage learner
application and transfer through advice, support, and accountability. Multiple respondents also
said that using measurement surveys and assessments to track behavior change was effective, but
this theme did not have enough support from the overall respondent group to be presented as a
best practice recommendation.
Reminders and Follow-ups
A popular practice among leadership development respondents is sending messages to
participants to remind them of their learning and to look for opportunities to apply new skills. In
the literature, reminders to apply are often classified as part of the transfer environment and are
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considered effective tools for increasing learning transfer (Martin, 2010; Sitzmann & Ely, 2010).
This is a common custom for many training initiatives implemented by L&D people, as well. Bo
is using “email reminders” sent to their leadership participants. Eden is “in regular contact with
all those people in the program” to keep the communication flowing. “We have standardized
communication for follow-up activities,” notes Mandy, “and other learnings that they could
take.” While these reminder notifications are common, practitioners know that they are often
unwanted by participants. “How do you keep [the learning] top of mind without being intrusive
or annoying?” asks Fiona.
The respondents shared some operational notes. Otto engages their “facilitators to follow-
up post-training.” Inez also uses facilitators and other members of their L&D team, saying, “we
will follow up ourselves with those individuals to see how things are progressing, where they’re
at, and what other support they might need.” Using facilitators to follow-up with learners was a
practice that many respondents would have liked to use but could not due to workload. Most
respondents were using unsophisticated reminder systems. In Fiona’s system, “you set the
messages in advance, and at a certain interval, it’ll send them out.” Farah is “using our LMS to
try to send ticklers and reminders” to “help learners remember to apply” but also described the
difficulty in scheduling reminders in a way that will feel relevant to most learners. Beverly has a
more advanced sustainment tool that checks in with people: “It asks them questions: how’s it
going? Have you discussed this with your team? Have you started using it?” Automated
reminders and follow-ups are classified by most respondents as an effective way to prompt usage
and help learners recall key tips. Respondents also see a downside to these messages when
learners find them annoying or unwelcome, but these L&D professionals do not know of a better
way to improve mindfulness after and between training sessions.
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Coaching Services
Coaching is another post-training practice that respondents find highly effective at
helping learners apply new knowledge and skills. Research has found that coaching services help
learners better process what they have learned and apply new skills in their job setting (Bright &
Crockett, 2012; Jones et al., 2016). Few question the effectiveness of coaching as a leadership
development and transfer tool, but L&D respondents see coaching as an expensive option. It is
typically executed by certified coaching contractors and has a high cost per session for L&D
departments to absorb. Fiona provides professional coaching services “across our leadership
populations. … We teach them foundational coaching skills and then provide coaching to them
as part of a benefit of the program. They get access to a vendor coach … throughout their first
year.” Larry “includes coaching for leaders” in their leadership development programs, focusing
their coaches on “checking in every X months” to discuss “challenges, successes, and [offer]
encouragement” to learners. Mona said that their leadership experiences all come “with some
coaching support,” which might be handled by facilitators as “our classroom has a coaching
component to it.” Due to the expensive nature of coaching services, some respondents reserve
them for more senior audiences. Other L&D respondents described their hope or intention to use
more coaching services in the future. Grover mentioned the most effective transfer driver “is that
coaching component. … Using professional coaches … to remind people what they learned in
this class and help them draw connections.” Grover described coaching as “the most important
next piece and where I want to go next.” This shared belief that coaching was powerful but
expensive was notable across respondents. This issue led some respondents to think of other
ways to get some of the benefits of professional coaches without the expense level, yielding
ideas like in-house coaching certifications and peer coaching.
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Application Sessions
The third commonly mentioned transfer-building practice was having leadership
development participants attend facilitated sessions after training with the express purpose of
helping them put their new knowledge and skills into practice. Application sessions and refresher
events were noted in the research as a respected method for improving learning transfer (Witt,
2021). Participants used many terms to describe these sessions, such as “practice sessions,”
“follow-up sessions,” and “learning circles,” but all had the purpose of supporting learner
transfer and offering coaching and advice. Grover described application sessions in which
learners “review some of the material with an instructor, do an exercise or two … and then also
bring in a bit of [their] experience and planned action … to keep that momentum going.” Eden
used “action learning sessions that people can join” in which “learners can talk about their
experiences and get advice.” Inez offered “clinics where people have a chance every couple of
months … to do some practice” and “debrief on where you’re at.” This idea of bringing learners
back together out of their daily routines to focus on learning transfer was respected by many
respondents. Mandy employed “follow-up sessions where they actually had some sort of
homework to do in between, and then discuss about it,” and attendees “had a higher success in
terms of applying the knowledge.” These sessions dedicated to helping leadership learners reflect
on their success using new skills, get help and advice, and form plans to apply these skills are a
direct way that L&D practitioners can encourage learning transfer. Practitioners seem to enjoy
doing these sessions, and they can have a tangible impact on learner motivation and behaviors.
Environmental Encouragement
The prior two sections discussed the instructional design methods that L&D respondents
in this study use, and the post-training measures they take, to improve the odds of learning
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transfer in their leadership development participants. This section describes three social and
environmental levers that respondents believe in and use when they can: supervisor involvement,
senior leader involvement, and peer group involvement. Activating these three stakeholder
groups is a clear example of SCT in practice (Bandura, 1991, 2001). While all three methods are
used or sought after at most respondent organizations, supervisor involvement was seen as the
most potent measure for increasing learning transfer.
Supervisor Involvement
Leadership development respondents had a shared belief that leadership participants are
heavily influenced by their supervisors. The interviewed L&D practitioners were clear about the
impact of this one variable in its ability to affect the transfer of learned behaviors after leadership
classes. Grover said this about the supervisors’ effect on transfer: “Unless the upline leader is
following up, … and unless the upline leader is making the time, … nothing is going to go
anywhere, no matter what you do.” “Supervisor transfer is the top predictor,” Grover added,
“Managers play the critical role.” According to Bo, “Our managers are strategic enablers” of
leadership learning transfer, and the lack of supervisor support “was their biggest obstacle.”
Teshawn shared their belief that “we have to engage the [participants’] managers.” And Mandy
commented that “there’s a lot of influence that the supervisor can have … the closest person to
an employee is their manager.” This was the strongest set of comments across the interviews
about a single potent driver of learning transfer.
Moving past the priority of supervisor involvement relating to transfer, respondents
shared many specific practices. Otto communicated with each leadership participant’s supervisor
to inform them about “what [class] they were going to, what behaviors they were learning, and
how to support them.” Teshawn told the supervisor as soon as a leadership participant was
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enrolled and involved them when participants were considering dropping out of the learning
experience, saying, “Nine times out of 10, once the manager says, ‘tell me what the problem is,’
they solve it, and the person stays in the journey.” Bo’s “team members would email the
managers … and ask are you seeing behavior changes in the associates who have taken the
class.” These messages served as reminders to managers to help learners apply their new skills.
Some respondents increase the level of supervisor involvement beyond just notification. “Bosses
are notified when people are enrolled by L&D,” according to Larry. “We ask them to help
learners make it a priority.” Beverly said, “I want to make managers the key” to driving learning
transfer, asking them, “have you talked to your employee recently about the leadership training
that they took? And here are some of the top three things you should discuss with them.” Many
respondents mentioned explicit conversations and communications they have with participants’
supervisors. Some explicitly tell these supervisors how important their role is in encouraging
learning transfer.
Some respondents described the assets and tools they provided to leadership participants’
direct supervisors to better arm them to help tentative learners make the time to apply. Otto
“sends them videos, articles, and talking points.” Farah sends “interactive documents to see what
learners learned” and “bite-sized activities to do with people” who attended training. Mandy
provided regular training updates to participants’ supervisors and shares what they are learning at
each stage of the leadership journey. There was no clear recipe for the most influential messages
and materials shared with participants’ supervisors, so this could be an opportunity for further
research.
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Executive Involvement
Another group of stakeholders that can influence leadership learning transfer is the
executive leaders within an organization. This group can send critical implicit and explicit
messages about the importance of leadership development and the role that important leadership
content can play in achieving personal and organizational goals. The mode of involvement varies
across organizations. Larry had “executives say a few words at the kickoff of new programs” to
reinforce their importance. Similarly, Farah had “senior leaders come in and speak” at leadership
kickoff events. Grover was “doing brown bags [lunch events] where we have executives and
other well-known leaders come and do a little speech” and “had two executive speakers come to
every graduation.” Mandy had execs “discussing this program and their role in the business in
their town halls or in their business meetings.” Other practices mentioned were using executives
to send emails, appearing in videos, providing quotes, or teaching classes. Several respondents
shared comments about challenges in securing senior leaders’ involvement for these purposes.
Ten out of 12 respondents believed that executive involvement in leadership development
initiatives had learning transfer-boosting potential by sending clear signals to leadership
participants and others in the organization that the leadership methods are important.
Peer Communities
Having discussed the impacts of supervisors and executives on the behavior of leadership
trainees, peers are the third group of stakeholders that respondents believe can play an important
role in learning transfer. They described many reasons why allowing learners to talk with each
other can help build their mindfulness and motivation to apply new skills and how it can provide
helpful advice and insights that tentative learners can benefit from. Bo believed that leadership
learners are “more influenced by peer discussions than really anything else” and that these
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learners “need to come together, and they need to talk to each other.” Mona created “learning
circles where you can show up on a regular basis and ask questions and interact with somebody
who has knowledge of the topic.” According to Grover, “We’re bringing several cohorts back
together for a mini-community of practice/peer mentoring/peer coaching group, so people can
come back together again, talk about their experiences, and get ideas from one another.” The
structure, naming, and frequency of these peer groups varied across respondents. Fiona structures
their peer support groups as “coaching circles” telling learners that “once a month, you’ll check
back in, talk about what’s top of mind, and talk about how you’re applying what we learned in
the training.” Some respondents described these peer communities as learning cohort follow-on
sessions, and others described them more as longer-term support groups. While only six of the
12 respondents spoke directly about peer communities, they spoke about them strongly and used
them heavily. This topic is very related to the use of learning cohorts which was also employed
commonly. Taken together, these two practices are a notable trend for boosting learning transfer
through social learning and reinforcement.
Respondents clearly felt that environmental influences were an important set of dynamics
that can positively impact leadership development learning transfer. When leadership learners
return to work between and after formal training sessions, they typically face a large workload
(Russ-Eft, 2002). As they struggle to keep up with their workload, it can be hard for them to
remember to apply their new knowledge in skills during the critical period while they still retain
that information. Key stakeholders such as participants’ direct supervisors, their executive teams,
and their professional peers can have a major impact on them by making it clear that transferring
new skills is important, encouraged, and even expected. While leadership development
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practitioners may not be able to use every learning transfer practice available, the respondents for
this study placed special emphasis on these three practices.
Summary of Findings
The goal of this research was to shed light on the leadership development learning
transfer drivers and barriers experienced within organizations. The 12 semi-structured interviews
with senior L&D practitioners yielded insightful findings on the three research questions on this
topic. Regarding the third research question, 11 transfer-boosting practices were identified,
which I categorized into themes related to design, post-training activities, and environmental
influencers. These practices all fit within the SCT framework (Bandura, 1991, 2001). While all
11 could be effective practices to encourage learning transfer, a few practices seemed to have the
most leverage for L&D practitioners leading leadership development programs. Designing
training to set leadership learners up for transfer is a clear implication. Using coaching services
(if they can be afforded), reminders, and application sessions are recommended. And because
learners’ supervisors were identified as the most influential stakeholder group, activating them as
learning transfer sponsors can be a significant booster of learning transfer.
The first research question inquired about learning transfer barriers that participants
commonly experience. Three barriers were identified: learners were distracted by their heavy
workload, were reluctant to try new skills due to their inexperience with them and were often
discouraged from applying new skills by apathetic or unsupportive bosses. Since participants
enrolled in leadership development programs are often among the busiest and most successful
professionals in their organizations, the problem of high workload impairing learning transfer is
a significant problem. The second research question investigated the obstacles making it difficult
for L&D practitioners to focus on learning transfer work. Three L&D transfer obstacles were
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experienced by most respondents and were all related to low team capacity. Typically, L&D
departments have low staffing levels and spend most of their time planning for and delivering
training programs. This is another set of challenges that is difficult for L&D practitioners to
solve because they do not directly control the funding assigned to their department.
There was a great deal of alignment across these interviews. All respondents felt that
leadership development was critical to their organizations. All believed that learning transfer was
critical. Although many felt guilty about under-investing in explicit learning transfer measures in
their leadership development initiatives, most identified learning transfer as an important future
focus. As an example, Beverly said that “2023 is the year of sustainment.” These interviews
offered many themes for leadership development learning transfer drivers and barriers that can
be used to create recommendations in the following chapter.

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Chapter Five: Conclusions and Recommendations
The focus of this study was to investigate why leadership development programs in
organizations have poor learning transfer (Beer et al., 2016) and to identify a set of practices that
encourage the transfer of new leadership knowledge and skills back into the workplace after
training. This is an important problem to solve because organizations around the world have
invested heavily in developing their leaders (O’Leonard & Loew, 2012) in the pursuit of critical
organizational goals (Alfes et al., 2013; Harter et al., 2010; Kozak, 2014). This leadership
transfer gap undermines the important goals of these leadership programs and can impact the
productivity and morale of employees and managers worldwide.
I chose SCT (Bandura, 1991, 2001) as my conceptual framework for this study to
highlight the social influences on learning transfer. I was initially drawn to SCT’s relevance to
learning transfer barriers, believing that the influence of stakeholders and environmental cues is
critical to encouraging leadership learning transfer. My literature review work deepened that
belief. To best understand this problem, I conducted deep semi-structured interviews (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016) with people who oversee leadership development initiatives in organizations.
Specifically, these were senior L&D managers (Brassey et al., 2019) with many years of
experience who have overseen both successful and unsuccessful leadership development
programs. These experienced training and development professionals were in positions to
understand the social cognitive lenses and dynamics within their organizations. Semi-structured
interviews allowed information on transfer drivers and barriers to be collected while allowing
comments of interest to be explored (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I defined three research
questions focused on identifying the drivers and barriers of learning transfer within leadership
development initiatives:
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1. What learning transfer barriers do L&D professionals believe that leadership
development trainees encounter most at work?
2. What barriers do L&D professionals encounter most frequently when implementing
measures to boost learning transfer/application after leadership training?
3. What support and reinforcement practices do L&D professionals find most effective at
improving learning transfer?
Interviews used a nine-question instrument created to gather information across these three
research questions. Twelve in-depth interviews were conducted in September and October of
2022. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, coded, and synthesized into a set of themes
discussed in depth in Chapter Four. Many themes arose, but I chose to include only those themes
that were mentioned by at least half of the interview respondents. The following section provides
the results of this study in the form of a summary of findings and a set of recommendations for
leadership development organizers and champions. Some limitations of this study and calls for
future research will be outlined, followed by concluding statements.
Key Findings
The interviews with senior L&D professionals yielded many findings, highlighted in
Table 7. The primary factors discouraging leadership development learners from transferring
new skills into their work lives are their heavy workload, their reluctance to try out new
behaviors in which they are not confident, and their supervisors’ lack of support or interest. The
respondents painted a consistent picture of the obstacles they personally face: a high workload,
limited budgets and staff sizes, and a daily workload filled with training delivery tasks. This
combination of barriers faced both by learners and by leadership development staff creates
difficult challenges for learning transfer.
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Table 7
Key Findings From Learning Transfer Research
Finding Description
Learner transfer barriers
Workload barrier Leadership development participants have no spare
capacity to practice new skills.
Reluctance due to inexperience Leadership development participants are unwilling to
try new behaviors because they have low
confidence in their ability to perform them
Unsupportive supervisors Participants’ direct supervisors discourage use of
learned behaviors or are disinterested in them.
L&D learning transfer obstacles
High L&D workload Those coordinating and delivering leadership
programs have no time or capacity to invest in
transfer-building practices.
Staffing and budget limitations They have little/no personnel or budget to secure help
to oversee transfer-building practices.
Delivery focus Their focus on necessary training administration and
facilitation tasks leaves no time for reinforcement.
Transfer-boosting practices
Leadership program design: spaced
design
Designing leadership experiences that unfold over
many weeks or months rather than occurring in one
or a few dense training sessions
Leadership program design:
incorporating work into training
Including activities for learners to complete real work
tasks and focus on actual work relationships in the
training design
Leadership program design:
incorporating action planning
Including activities where learners plan ways they
will use their new skills at work
Leadership program design: cohort
groups
Designing training to cluster learners together into
groups that provide connection and support
Leadership program design: accessible
tools and job aids
Providing easy access to informative and functional
support tools
Post-training activities: reminders and
follow-ups
Sending learners notifications and nudges to help
learners remember what and how to apply new
skills after training
Post-training activities: coaching
services
Offering learners a professional coach to help them
behavioralize leadership skills and form new habits
Post-training activities: Application
sessions
Pulling learners back together after training to discuss
experiences, refresh content, and create
accountability
Environmental encouragement:
supervisor involvement
Getting learner’s bosses to help learners apply new
skills and develop new habits
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Finding Description
Environmental encouragement:
executive involvement
Garnering support from executives in the form of
comments, videos, teaching, etc.
Environmental encouragement: peer
communities
Cultivating ongoing communities of developing and
established leaders to provide support and advice to
learners

The bulk of interviews were focused on transfer-boosting practices that participants had
tried. These discussions yielded 11 best practices that L&D practitioners could consider when
planning new leadership development initiatives. The first cluster of practices related to how
learning experiences are designed. Respondents’ comments indicate that leadership development
programs should stretch the design over many weeks or months, should include both real work
assignments and reflection and planning on how learners will apply new skills, and should
organize learners into cohort groups to leverage social learning benefits. They believed that
transfer can be increased through several factors that follow the formal training, including
sending reminders to learners to keep their application plans forefront in their minds, scheduling
application sessions after training to create support and accountability for transfer, and including
coaching services where they can afford them. Finally, respondents spoke about three
environmental influences that can be engaged to support learning transfer for developing leaders:
learners’ direct supervisors, senior executives, and peer communities. Of all these learning
transfer drivers, learners’ supervisors were considered by most respondents to be the most
influential in their ability to directly impact leadership learning transfer. These best practices
identified by respondents were the basis for the recommendations in the following section.
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Recommendations
Learning transfer gaps have been identified and studied for over a century (Blume et al.,
2010), and leadership development theory and research go back even further (Avolio et al.,
2009). The literature review uncovered and analyzed much research on these subjects and their
overlap. Prior literature mentions many factors that can be used to prepare leadership learners,
teach them, give them opportunities to practice new skills and reinforce and encourage them to
transfer their skills into the workplace. This plethora of research and practices can be confusing
to leadership development practitioners. All respondents in this study described their training
departments as having too much workload, insufficient staff and budget, and/or having to spend
the majority of their time on the delivery of training sessions. Based on 12 years of working with
L&D professionals, I also have found L&D departments to be overworked and struggling to keep
up with established commitments. This combination of confusion from too many transfer-
boosting practices to choose from and lack of time with which to experiment and invest has left
leadership development practitioners in their current difficult position. With little time and no
clear transfer-building priorities, many have focused on their delivery tasks and avoided transfer-
building activities. As a result, many respondents expressed regret and hoped to attend to transfer
in the future.
The 11 practices listed in Table 7 are all useful and all based on the research in this study,
however, many L&D practitioners will likely find that to be too many recommendations to
address routinely. To create a more actionable and focused set of recommendations, I looked for
critical themes across the research. I considered the relative benefits that busy L&D practitioners
and leadership development champions were likely to accrue from each tactic, which practices
tend to be within the sphere of influence of L&D staff, and which can be implemented without
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considerable additional effort or expense. This process of forming recommendations was also
informed by my 12 years of experience working in the leadership development industry with
L&D partners to design leadership experiences. I used the three lenses of SCT (Bandura, 1991,
2001) to bring these recommendations into focus. While L&D practitioners are more familiar
with practices related to the personal and behavioral factors of SCT, many may be surprised by
the potential impact of the recommended practices related to environmental factors. I attempted
to counter-balance my personal assumptions and biases, to create the most potent and actionable
set of recommendations for leadership designers. Table 8 provides a list of key recommendations
which are described in detail in the following section.

Table 8
Key Recommendations to Encourage Leadership Development Learning Transfer
Design with transfer in mind
Design learning experiences to be spaced over time.
Incorporate real work tasks and planning.
Activate environmental influencers
Recruit participants’ supervisors as learning transfer champions.
Leverage peer cohorts and communities.
Keep application top of mind for learners
Run application sessions following formal training.
Use reminders to reinforce application.

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Design with Transfer In Mind
Before leadership development programs are delivered, they must be designed. This is a
common area of attention for L&D practitioners and instructional designers. The first two
recommended practices relate to how leadership development practitioners structure their
learning experiences to boost learning transfer.
Design Learning Experiences to Be Spaced Over Time
Several design practices were identified to best position learners to transfer skills into
their daily work habits. First, experience designers should avoid using monolithic training
events, bringing everyone together for one or more days to complete the training quickly.
Instead, designers should structure the training as smaller learning events spread out over more
time (Kang, 2016; Smolen et al., 2016). This method was identified as a positive practice in the
literature as it provides more time for learners to absorb material and results in improved recall.
A good place to start is by examining all training programs structured as single events, such as
one day or multiple day workshops, and divide them into smaller sessions. Look for natural
places in the training design to pause, and redesign these to offer learners time to reflect and
apply what they’ve learned before the next module. Using a spaced design also allows learners
more opportunities to integrate real work tasks into their learning. This is the second
recommended design practice.
Incorporate Real Work Tasks and Planning
Designing learning activities that encourage developing leaders to bring real work tasks
and real relationship challenges into their learning journeys is a practice that many respondents
spoke of. Research supports these practices because they make training highly relevant and allow
for the practice of skills that learners will truly need (Salas et al., 2012). It helps developing
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leaders address their concerns about their growing workload by allowing them to work on tasks
that are already on their to-do lists. Linking this practice to prior research, integrating work tasks
gives learners critical opportunities to apply new skills (Sørensen, 2017). It can increase the task
value that learners place on their new information and skills (Eccles, 2005), and the level of task
value placed on these new capabilities can be even more important than the degree to which
these learners have mastered their new skills (Alliger et al., 1997). Incorporating real work also
includes having learners make tangible plans for how they will continue to apply their new skills
in the weeks ahead (Ambrose, 2010). Half of the respondents mentioned this as an effective way
to bridge learners from classroom theory to transferring their new skills and knowledge to the
workplace. Learning designers should create a series of activities throughout the learning design
that allows learners to reflect on new knowledge and start practicing new skills focused on real
work tasks and challenges. There are many creative learning activities that can be used to
accomplish this goal. In addition, designers should include activities in which learners think
about ways they could apply what they have learned, write down some plans, and even schedule
meetings to encourage follow-through. This is a very direct way to improve learning transfer by
explicitly asking learners to start creating their own learning transfer plans. Respondents
described work task integration and usage planning as impactful techniques that can often be
incorporated into existing activities, not requiring much additional time or specialized facilitation
skills.
Through an SCT lens (Bandura, 1991, 2001), these design practices are linked to the
personal and behavioral factors. Stretching the learning design can increase developing learners’
ability to practice new behaviors at work and build competence and motivation. Having
leadership learners work on their actual work tasks and relationship challenges can better
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behavioralize their learnings and build confidence and beliefs of self-efficacy aligning with
SCT’s behavioral and personal factors (Bandura, 1991, 2001). And having learners actively plan
how they will use new skills after training is a metacognitive task that helps learners adjust their
attitudes (personal factors) while encouraging them to use new behaviors in the critical weeks
following the end of training (behavioral factors).
Activate Environmental Influencers
The second set of recommended practices shifts the attention of leadership development
champions from the design of the program to several environmental influencers. These
stakeholder groups are important to learners and can significantly encourage them to apply their
learning or discourage them from doing so.
Recruit Participants’ Supervisors as Learning Transfer Champions
One of the clearest patterns that aligned the literature and the L&D respondent interviews
was that emerging leaders’ direct supervisors can be a strong influence on learning transfer. The
existing research describes the overall importance of supervisors in creating learning transfer
outcomes (Blume et al., 2010; Witt, 202; Young et al., 2017) and outlines many practices that
supervisors can use to support the emerging leaders that report to them through their leadership
journey (Govaerts et al., 2017; Lancaster et al., 2013). All 12 L&D respondents spoke about the
importance of supervisor involvement and described ways to best engage their learners’
supervisors with the responsibility of driving learning transfer. They also portrayed supervisor
discouragement as one of the most damaging ways to deter transfer. Moving forward, leadership
development managers should take steps to build supervisor buy-in and support to encourage
learning transfer. This starts with ensuring that supervisors understand why their staff members
are participating in leadership development activities, what key content they will be learning, the
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benefits to the organization, and the steps they can take to encourage learning and transfer. Some
respondents recommend sending supervisors notes throughout the leadership development
journey to inform them what their staff member is experiencing. Others will involve the
supervisors when a leadership development employee is struggling or considering dropping out
of the program to get the supervisors’ help.
In their meta-analysis of supervisor behaviors that boost learning transfer, Govaerts et al.
(2017) defined 24 behavior categories covered in the literature. Some baseline recommendations
are for L&D leaders to ensure that leadership participants’ supervisors become aware that they
are a critical determinant of transfer through their attention and actions. Supervisors can start by
describing why they personally believe it is important for their leadership trainee to learn and
apply these new skills. They can ask questions about how the training is going, how their
attempts to use new knowledge and skills are progressing, and what barriers are getting in their
way. These questions prove to leadership development learners that applying new skills is
important to their manager. Supervisors can adjust workload to allow their people to have more
time to experiment with new skills (Burke & Hutchins, 2007). They can also make relevant
suggestions about tasks and relationships that offer opportunities to apply new skills. Further,
they can problem solve and coach their people on how to apply new learnings in challenging
situations. Supervisors’ behaviors and attitudes regarding leadership training send strong signals
to emerging leaders about whether the organization thinks their training is important (Martin,
2010).
These supervisor behaviors, ranging from simple attentiveness and passive support to
active assistance, all provide social accountability to their direct reports. This is an
environmental factor in Bandura’s (2001) SCT model and possibly the most potent of the
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environmental factors discussed in this study (Blume et al., 2010). To make this recommendation
even more tangible, those L&D leaders responsible for leadership development programs should
consider which supervisor behaviors and attitudes are most important in their organizations and
should form an explicit plan to inform and enroll them as learning transfer coaches. This is not a
common practice across organizations (Sørensen, 2017), but it is a powerful one.
Leverage Peer Cohorts and Communities
Leadership development participants have peers in their organization, and those peers can
be used to great effect as learning transfer accelerators. Much literature notes that learning with
coworkers and peers can increase learner motivation, provide assistance, and add accountability
to use new skills at work (Lancaster et al., 2013; Schindler & Burkholder, 2016). In addition,
two-thirds of senior L&D respondents used it in their leadership designs. Leadership experience
designers should incorporate cohort groups into their designs to create social learning benefits,
increase social support, and create peer-based accountability to transfer skills. One successful
approach is to include coworkers and team members in the same training cohort, as this approach
has proven to boost learning outcomes (Salamon et al., 2022).
Leveraging peer support shouldn’t stop once the formal training has ended. Many
respondents used ongoing communities of support for emerging leaders to join as a way to
increase their motivation to apply, increase their mindfulness to look for usage opportunities,
increase their knowledge through the sharing of helpful tips and experiences, and increase the
level of felt accountability to get some benefit from the training investment. To shift to
recommendations, leadership development designers should build small group cohorts into each
training design, either by creating groups out of new training peers, or by grouping participants
based on their pre-existing teams. Training managers should also try to create longstanding
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learning communities (Martin, 2010) that emerging leaders can join and that can provide
ongoing support and encouragement over time after the formal learning experience has
completed. A promising practice is to recruit enthusiastic leadership learners from each cohort to
play a leadership role in the peer community. The goal is for these communities to be self-
sustaining, requiring little ongoing support from L&D practitioners.
Utilizing peers and coworkers to enrich the learning experience, and to provide ongoing
support and encouragement, is related to the environmental and behavioral factors of SCT
(Bandura, 1991, 2001), with peers becoming an influential stakeholder group in emerging
leaders’ environments and with the work they do in peer support groups creating better skills and
habits. In my experience, creating rich, self-sustaining peer groups is not an easy practice for
many L&D leaders, but if they can marshal their resources, leverage those emerging leaders
drawn to community work and peer coaching, and create a peer community for emerging leaders,
it will likely boost learning transfer and outcomes over the long term without requiring ongoing
L&D support.
Keep Application Top of Mind for Learners
The final recommended practices are focused on maintaining some learner attention on
their application and transfer progress after formal training has ended. This is not easy as learner
workload and other issues frequently distract learners from mindfully practicing new skills.
Run Application Sessions Following Formal Training
While L&D respondents shared that they spend almost all their time on the planning and
delivery of training programs, the research indicates that post-training practices are meaningful
influences on training transfer success or failure (Schindler & Burkholder, 2016). One practice
that more than half of respondents advise is designing and scheduling follow-on sessions after
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the end of the formal learning journey, to focus not on teaching new content but on debriefing
learners and shifting their attention toward applying new skills in their role. These application
sessions are supported in industry research as being effective (Kluge et al., 2012) and in demand
by L&D leaders (Witt, 2021). Leadership development owners and designers should add these
sessions to their learning architectures and make the sessions mandatory where possible. These
sessions are easy to design, as they do not require rich materials or content. A few questions are
all that is needed to get emerging leaders talking about their experiences and challenges in trying
to use their new knowledge and skills. Knowing that there is a session coming up in which they
must talk about their usage experience can create useful accountability for emerging leaders who
are not internally motivated to apply. Application sessions can create some helpful knowledge
and motivation, show learners ways to turn their new knowledge into behaviors, and create some
social accountability pressure. This involves the personal, behavioral, and environmental factors
of SCT (Bandura, 1991, 2001) and is an example of that model’s triadic reciprocity effect where
all three factors are at work on a single dynamic.
Use Reminders to Reinforce Application
Learner transfer research acknowledges that some post-training practices influence
learning transfer (Schindler & Burkholder, 2016). Sitzmann and Ely (2010) pointed to reminders
as an effective way to keep learning on leadership participants’ minds after training winds down.
In some research, post-training reminders are considered part of the transfer climate (Martin,
2010), an environmental driver of learning transfer, although I see triadic reciprocity at work in
these reminders as they convey environmental expectations, can shift attitudes (personal factor),
and can influence behaviors directly. Nine of 12 senior L&D respondents use reminders as a
transfer-driving measure in their leadership programs. Many see reminders as a necessary evil.
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These respondents do not want to bother their busy emerging leaders, and they know that many
leaders find the reminders annoying. However, they do not have a better way to help learners
stay mindful of their learning and actively look for opportunities to apply it. Leadership
development leaders should continue to use reminders for learners after their leadership training
winds down to remind them to apply it and to set their expectations about what behaviors are
most expected of them. Using email, instant messaging, and other collaboration platforms is fine
for now, and artificial intelligence, chatbot technology, and new collaboration platforms might
create future opportunities to design reminder systems that are less intrusive for learners.
Other Beneficial Practices to Consider
The following are additional recommendations arising from this study’s literature review
and practitioner interviews that are also likely to boost leadership development learning transfer.
Involving executives has been shown to be a powerful environmental factor through SCT’s lens
(Bandura, 1991, 2001) that aids learning transfer outcomes across many studies (Kim &
Callahan, 2013). Most interview respondents used senior leaders’ support or involvement in a
variety of forms, ranging from using executives’ quotes and shooting videos of executives to
having executives teach classes. Executive involvement is a useful practice that sends strong
messages of importance to learners, but it is often not available to every L&D person for use in
every training initiative. L&D practitioners should use executive involvement if they have access
to it, but other methods can be pursued if executives are unwilling or unavailable to participate or
endorse their training initiatives.
Learning and development practitioners are often called on to deliver one-on-one
coaching to people in their organizations or to connect employees with certified professional
coaches. Research indicates that coaching is an effective learning transfer tool when coaches and
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learners use their time to talk about their experiences using their new leadership skillset (Bright
& Crockett, 2012; Jones et al., 2016). Two-thirds of L&D respondents use coaching when they
can to support learning transfer, and some believe it to be the most effective single practice as it
can help tentative leaders learn tips, hone their skills, and feel some social accountability to their
coach. This combination of benefits is another example of triadic reciprocity in the SCT model
(Bandura, 1991, 2001), where one measure can create personal, behavioral, and environment
impacts. However, coaching services can be expensive and time-consuming, so L&D
practitioners often have to use coaching services sparingly. When designing and managing
leadership development initiatives, L&D practitioners should use coaching services if possible.
While expensive to offer, coaching focused on learning transfer is very effective. If coaching
budgets are tight, leadership development managers can use it strategically and surgically to
accomplish their most important transfer goals. For example, they could offer coaching hours to
highly motivated but struggling individuals to help them overcome their obstacles. These two
practices, incorporating executive involvement and coaching services, may not be accessible to
all leadership development practitioners but should be considered if they have the needed funds
and access.
Limitations and Delimitations
It is important to be transparent about the limitations that might impact the validity and
credibility of research (Maxwell, 2013). There are many limitations to this study related to the
sources of data and methods of analysis. The interview-focused methodology included semi-
structured interviews (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) with 12 senior leadership development
managers across 11 industries and several countries. Respondents might not have been truthful or
complete with their responses. Those interviewed might not represent trends that might be
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observed in a larger population or in specific industries or regions. While these respondents were
chosen using a purposeful sampling method (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016), selection bias might
have influenced their recruitment, and interpretive issues, including confirmation bias, may have
played a role in the analysis and synthesis of respondent data.
In terms of delimitations, this study sought to uncover learning transfer drivers and
barriers through interviews with L&D practitioners in the United States and Europe. The study
did not include people in other roles or in other regions. It did not involve leadership
development participants, a group that would likely add useful insights to this problem domain.
Surveying or interviewing leadership development participants could better illuminate the
participants’ experience as they cross the learning transfer threshold and could share more detail
on which stakeholders and methods would influence them most. The study also did not involve
executive sponsors of leadership development programs, which could provide insight on
organizations’ strategic goals for these programs.
Future Research
Future research could broaden and deepen the population of respondents by adding more
leadership development leader interviews and adding stakeholders that play other L&D and
leadership roles. Adding a data-gathering component with a quantitative approach aimed at
leadership development participants would be advantageous. A survey with at least several
hundred responses from leadership learners could provide additional information on learning
transfer drivers and barriers and offer the benefits of mixed methods research (Creswell &
Creswell, 2018). Future research on the relative effectiveness of various transfer-boosting
practices would be very useful to help leadership development designers make tradeoffs. It
would be informative to have future research focus on messages and practices to increase the
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willingness of participants’ supervisors to become active learner transfer coaches and advocates.
Also, additional research on techniques to positively use reminders after training could help
L&D practitioners figure out the right ways to remind leadership development learners while
minimizing their annoyance.
Conclusion
Leadership development is a common priority and a substantial investment across
organizations (Kaiser & Curphy, 2013; Lacerenza et al., 2017; O’Leonard & Loew, 2012), yet
most leadership development efforts fall short of expected goals (Beer et al., 2016; Society for
Human Resource Management, 2016) due to learning transfer gaps (Sørensen, 2017). The goal
of this study was to uncover and analyze the drivers of and barriers to learning transfer for
leadership development initiatives through the lens of Social Cognitive theory (Bandura, 1991,
2001) and then to make recommendations that might allow leadership development practitioners
to achieve higher learning transfer and, therefore, higher impact from their efforts. Twelve L&D
professionals who had overseen successful and unsuccessful leadership development programs
were interviewed in depth, and the insights from these semi-structured interviews (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016) formed the main pool of data for themes, findings, and recommendations.
This study uncovered that leadership development participants are very busy (Rainbird &
Munro, 2003; Saks, 2013) and are often too uncertain about their new skills to try them out on
their own. These phenomena act as a barrier to learning transfer. The L&D managers overseeing
leadership development programs are also busy and overloaded with administrative and delivery
tasks (Matthews, 2018), which means that two key stakeholder groups feel too busy to complete
these important learning transfer tasks. This results in weak training transfer into observable
behaviors and low impact of leadership development initiatives (Society for Human Resource
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Management, 2016). Learning is perishable, and learning transfer is fragile and does not happen
on its own (Lacerenza et al., 2017).
This study yielded many findings that might help leadership development professionals
improve their learning transfer outcomes. I reduced the many positive practices down to six
recommendations to help L&D practitioners focus on the most impactful interventions.
Leadership instructional designers should structure learning experiences as spaced designs that
unfold over time (Kang, 2016; Smolen et al., 2016), and should incorporate participants’ real
work tasks and action-planning steps in the training design (Ambrose et al., 2010). Leadership
development professionals should activate two critical stakeholder groups to create
environmental support and pressure for leadership learners to apply new skills. This includes
engaging participants’ direct supervisors (Blume et al., 2010; Young et al., 2017) and involving
their peers through learning cohort groups and peer communities (Lancaster et al., 2013;
Schindler & Burkholder, 2016; Zhang et al., 2018). Finally, leadership development managers
should follow up after the formal training ends both with reminders to put their learning into
practice (Sitzmann & Ely, 2010), and with application sessions that engage learners in
discussions on their experiences trying out new skills and sharing practices to help them succeed
(Kluge et al., 2012). Leadership development managers should be realistic and selective, given
their workload and given that learner transfer strategies often need to be adapted for each
organization (Blume et al., 2010). These recommendations are the critical best practices
suggested by respondent data to enhance learning transfer outcomes, improve leaders’ behaviors,
and increase leadership development program effectiveness and return on investment. If
leadership development practitioners continue to execute leadership programs without adopting
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new practices, leader development will be hindered, employees will suffer, and organizations’
aspirations for better leadership and improved organizational performance will go unmet.

95

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109

Appendix A: Interview Questions
The following questions were asked of all interviewees.
1. Please describe your role and the organization in which you work. What leadership
development programs have you rolled out? How would you describe the culture in
your organization?
2. For the typical leadership development participant, what is it like for them to be
balancing work and training? What factors keep them from applying their new
knowledge and skills in their work?
3. What has your group done to help and encourage participants to apply their new skills
after training? How much transfer do you expect without transfer-boosting measures
in place?
4. What reinforcement measures have you found are most effective there? Least
effective there? Partially effective?
5. How have participants’ supervisors influenced the degree to which they applied their
new knowledge and skills? Stories? What experience have you had activating
supervisors to this end?
6. How do environmental aspects such as culture, leaders, coworkers, and rewards &
recognition influence learning transfer there? Please describe the experiences you
have had influencing these factors to boost transfer.
7. What has most limited you as an L&D professional from reinforcing training and
encouraging learners to apply (e.g., budget, time, leader support, lack of influence)?
8. If budget was not an issue, what post-training measures would you use to boost
application?
110

9. What wisdom would you pass on to others on how to make leadership development
stick?

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Asset Metadata

Creator Campbell, James (author)

Core Title Closing the leadership development learning transfer gap

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Organizational Change and Leadership (On Line)

Degree Conferral Date 2023-05

Publication Date 04/25/2023

Defense Date 04/13/2023

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag leadership development,leadership training,learning transfer,OAI-PMH Harvest,spaced learning,supervisor support,training effectiveness

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